Prosecutor's Daughter
by GleeGeneration23
Summary: In which Barba has a teenager daughter that comes to stay bringing with her stress, sarcasm and teenage antics three things the prosecutor hates. How does this change the dynamics within the Special Victims Unit? AU Season 15-17, Some Season 18. Non-episode specific, loose timeline.
1. A Brave New World

**Hi, so here is another story my first for SVU despite having watched it since Season 15. This came about from too many late nights binge watching all the episodes that Barba was in. This story came about from that.**

 **This story is not episode central, some episodes will be mentioned and have chapters based around them some wont. I plan to cover Season 15 to Season 17 some Season 18 depending on how It pans out and perhaps even Season 19 but i'm honestly not sure.**

 **There is no plans to add romance to this story but if you guys like it and you have a pairing then I don't mind adding one.**

 **Disclaimer-Nothing is mine just Avri.**

 **Please Read and Review.**

* * *

Prosecutor's Daughter

In which Barba has a teenager daughter that comes to stay bringing with her stress, sarcasm and teenage antics three things the prosecutor hates. How does this change the dynamics within the Special Victims Unit? AU Season 15-17, Some Season 18. Non-episode specific, loose timeline.

Chapter 1-A Brave New World.

* * *

It was a busy day.

That was what needed to be said because otherwise Captain Donald Cragen was going to lock himself in his office and despair at his detectives. All of them. Because here at SVU they took walk-ins seriously and a teenager walking in suitcase and iced latte in hand and sitting down at the table without anyone noticing her did not speak well to the security of his unit.

But it had been a very busy day.

Most of the detectives were cleaning up the mess that came when they were dealing with the now concluded rape case that involved the rich sleaze-bag Cameron Tyler, the trial was now getting ahead, there was a trial to prepare for and with the team still tightly strung after the whole William Lewis debacle tensions were still running high. Amaro, Fin and Rollins were pouring over the paperwork that needed to be finished and this time it had to be _on time_ and Benson and Barba were locked in a heated discussion in his office about whether or not the victim that they had made into a victim needed to be dragged in front of the grand jury.

So all in all he could confidently-or at least not lose sleep over the fact-that they were busy. So the girl sneaking in, taking a seat at the table where their screens were kept and sipping an iced coffee while reading her text messages without anyone seeing her but him was not too big an oversight.

Or at least that was going to be the official story.

Don caught a glimpse of her as he was walking back to his office after going to get this third cup of shitty coffee this morning in order to help him referee the battle of wills going on in his office. He apricated why Benson was in both Sarah and her friend Nicole's corner and his heart did genuinely go out to the latter but Benson was still struggling with her ordeal and he knew that in making this girl a victim in order to put a vicious predator behind bars he might have triggered a setback.

God he missed John some days. Since his retirement the week previous Don had to admit that he had been struggling somewhat. Munch had been closer to his age in the unit and he could still remember the days when Olivia and Elliot were young and throwing themselves into the job. He and Munch had laughed about it over coffee on stakeouts, what it would take for the two of them to stop caring in their own way about each and every victim with no distinction.

Now Munch was gone into the bliss of retirement and Elliot had put in his papers too tired to carry on and God knows Olivia was never going to be the same no matter how hard she tried.

He was really looking for any excuse when he saw the girl and for a second he looked around you know, just to make sure he was seeing it.

She didn't look like a victim. He supposed that was wrong of him to judge but he had seen many victims both as a homicide captain and an SUV captain and she didn't look like one. She had long brown hair that was curling slightly and her face from what he could see was the colour of coffee after you just poured half a milk carton in, she had dark brown eyes slanted cheekbones and her lips were painted red. Don had been out of the dating game for a while but he could tell that this girl could walk into a bar in this city and at any age not pay for drinks. She was on her phone with a board expression though her mouth was twisted slightly as if the lack of response she was getting didn't surprise her. She was in jeans and high heeled black boots and a red jumper that matched both her lipstick and her nails.

She didn't look nervous or frightened in fact she looked board. Don couldn't remember the last time he'd seen someone walk into SVU with a board expression. Or with a suitcase come to think of it.

Liv's voice rose from his office and Don decided it was best to kill some time by asking this girl if she was ok.

He moved over to the table.

"Hello there" he said in what he hoped was a voice that didn't betray his confusion.

She looked at him then her eyes quick and apprising in that way teenagers had. She couldn't have been older than sixteen.

"Hi" she said sliding her phone into her bag that was resting on the suitcase.

"Can I help you with something?"

"I'm looking for my Dad, his office said he would be at SVU and the cops said this was the place"

"Well this is SVU yeah, but I don't think any off my officers have a kid your age. I've been Captain here for the last fifteen years, I think I've seen every photo off every kid that has a parent in my squad and I don't think I remember you"

"You wouldn't" the girl said casually taking a sip from her latte, and how women or girls did that without smearing their lipstick Don would never know. "My Dad's not a cop"

She stared at him with that twist of a smile and Don thought for a second. The only other people other than cops that entered this place were ADAs and they only had one of those assigned now…

Wait…did she mean…Barba?

"Barba?" he asked and she nodded looking relieved.

"Yeah" she said without really that Don's head was now spinning with this brand new information.

"I went to the office at the DA's and after all that fuss he wasn't there and then the secretary said he was probably here so I took a cab though I'm pretty sure he tried to cheat me. Anyhow I kinda didn't want to have this conversation with him over the phone. So…" she trailed off.

"Are you living with him now?" he asked eyeing the suitcase.

At once the smile dropped off her face and the little twist at the mouth was back. She shrugged once and Don took that as an excuse to go and get Barba and tell him that his teenage daughter was here and apparently staying judging by the suitcase.

"Stay here" he said resisting the urge to roll his eyes, he took a gulp of coffee and not for the first time counted down how long he had to mandatory retirement.

He opened the door to his office and saw much to his relief that Barba and Liv had stopped shouting and were now glaring at each other. Oh wonderful.

"Counsellor" he said trying not to take too great a pleasure in the news that he was about to bring.

"There is a girl outside, she has a suitcase and she says she's your daughter"

There was a pause as Liv gaped at him and Barba stared at him for a second, a long second before his eyes turned to the window. He was out of Don's office so fast that the Captain was almost impressed. He followed the prosecutor out of the doorway just in time to see Barba shout, "Avri"

The girl…no…Avri looked up and winced because Barba did not look too pleased.

"Hey Dad" she said standing up. They were nearly the same height and now they were facing each other he could see the resemblance. Avri wrapped her arms around her waist.

"When the hell…how the hell…why are you here?" Barba said pulling her to one side.

"Mom didn't call you…oh wait…never mind…I kinda need to stay with you for now" she said finally.

Barba gazed at her for a second in what looked like shock and Don realised that if he didn't do something soon this scenario would be around the entire NYPD by lunch. Nobody gossiped better than cops when they set their mind to it.

"How about we take this into my office and you two can…sort this out" he said and then he opened the door for them which was really an invitation in itself. If he got to sit down before lunchtime behind his own desk it would be nothing sort of a miracle.

Avri smiled at him the kind of smile that probably had two rookies stop what they were doing to smile back. She had dimples when she smiled as well he noted. Barba kinda jerked his head at him and then followed his daughter through to his office so that they could hash out whatever it was that was going on between them and fast.

"Wow" Liv said finally. "Barba has a teenager, I really did not see that coming"

It took great difficulty for Donald Cragen to contain his snort.

* * *

The second the door had shut Avri turned to face her father. She had known that simply strolling into the prescient was not perhaps the best idea but what choice did she have? That bloody secretary had refused her entry to her own father's office declaring that if her boss had a daughter she would know about it which said all that needed to be said in that department.

She was tired, she was more than a little hurt and she was in need of a shower, a change of clothes and a drink and not necessarily in that order.

Her Dad did not look pleased to see her. Oh his hug had been warm enough but she supposed turning up on his doorstep in front of his new work colleagues wasn't the best impression she could have made. But she was honestly too tired to care right now.

"Before you start believe me I didn't want to drop in on you like that" she said shaking her head. "But I didn't have a choice. Mom's in London with boyfriend number five and she made it very clear that she didn't want me with her."

"What do you mean she made it clear? She did or he did?"

Her father's voice had that undercurrent of steal that meant he was annoyed but not at her. Avri knew she had won him over when she had mentioned her Mom and she smiled though both of them knew it was a weak one.

"She did relax but she made it clear I had a weak to pack and get out of the apartment. So I came here, Uncle Alex got me a flight from Chicago to here last night, she'll be in London right now I reckon not that's she's gonna text me"

She tried to hide the hurt but she knew that she failed miserably. With her mother you would have thought Avri would have learnt a long time ago that disappointment was her bedfellow but each time it stung a little bit more than the time before.

"Oh cariño" he said finally and Avri took that to mean that he was annoyed but not at her. Avri tried to pretend that she wasn't annoyed by this whole thing but she couldn't help it. Her parents had not had the longest or happiest marriage and half of the reason they had gone to the courthouse was because her Mom had been pregnant or so her mother had said, it had been messy and never ending and she her Dad had pretty much given up on custody when she turned five on the condition that she live in the states and she came for Christmas though she had not done so this year.

"Look" she said running a hand through her hair. "I get it but…believe me If I had another place to go I would. I didn't exactly wanna show up here but…" she shrugged

If her father was hurt by her honesty he didn't show it.

"Here" he said handing her the keys and then scrawling down an address. "I have a hearing this afternoon but as soon as I can I'll get home and we can sort this out"

Avri didn't think there was much to sort out but she was tired and in dire need of a shower and a drink so she nodded took the keys and left.

Her Dad's apartment was much the same as it was the last time she had seen it, fortunately he had a bottle of wine under the counter and she uncorked it as she took it to the shower.

Hard to believe it but she still disappointed.

* * *

Liv had waited outside the courtroom once the judge had ruled that Nicole's testimony counted and she hadn't been lead to the conclusion that she had been raped by her and Rollins, and she fell into step as soon as Barba came out.

"So that was interesting" she said casually.

"Not really" Barba said not looking up. "Judge was never gonna throw that out, Nicole's got no prior records for lying and was clearly too intoxicated to realise what had happened"

"No not that…" she said shooting him a look.

"I mean your daughter turning up in the squad room"

Barba looked at her then. "Oh that"

Liv resisted the urge to roll her eyes with great difficulty.

"Yes that, you never said you had a daughter"

"It never came up…look it's complicated"

Liv gathered that.

"Avri, she's…she's been living with her mother and now her mother's gone off to London and left her with me, with no warning or heads up to either one of us which I wish I could say wasn't typical of my ex but it really is"

Liv nodded noticing a meltdown was on the way.

"You were married?"

"Loosely, look her family were big on marriage when a girl got pregnant and I was young and barely out of law school. Avri was…well not planned and both of us knew it, besides we divorced like three years after the fact and she's been with her Mom ever since"

"So that's it?"

"What…no Liv give me a break I don't know what to do, she's sixteen I haven't seen her in two years, if she's come to me it's because she doesn't have a choice which is hardly what a father likes to hear."

Liv would grant him that.

"Still you can't just throw her out"

Now it was Barba's turn to throw her a nasty look

"I know that. I don't intend to, what I intend to do is find my ex and yell at her for a year and then go home and try and figure out how this is gonna work"

Liv sighed again wishing she didn't feel a migraine coming on.

"If it makes you feel any better, I think your kid is just as confused as you are about this"

Barba snorted.

* * *

Well there was really nothing to do about it.

After a three-minute conversation with his _delightful_ ex-wife Rafael had come home in need of a drink. Perhaps a bottle.

It was clear Avri was staying. And he wasn't against the idea not by a longshot, hell he was glad that his daughter was staying, really pleased but he would have to take the fifth on how nervous he was at the thought.

He and Avri had never really _got on._

He had thrown himself into his work landing promotion after promotion and Avri had gone to live with her mother in Chicago and they had never really had time together. He had gone up to see her at Christmas but over the summer his new promotion to SVU, the fact that William Lewis was still awaiting trial and the many other demands of the Manhattan DA had taken up much of his free time.

He had wished he got unlimited access to his daughter and it seemed fate always did have a funny way of kicking him up the arse and now there was this…Avri his complete responsibly.

On the plus side that meant his mother was finally off his back about seeing her only grandchild now.

Avri had only been in his apartment a couple of hours and already it seemed she had moved in because he nearly broke a leg tripping over one of those boots. She had kept her suitcase in the corner but she had changed and was sat at the table flipping through her phone with a mug of something in front of her and half a bottle of red wine on the table.

Wait…

Half?

"Have you been drinking?" he asked trying to keep his temper down.

"Yeah" Avri said not looking up.

"Hang on, you've been drinking my wine, my sixty-dollar wine… _in a mug_?" he all but shouted.

Avri looked up then, "You pay sixty bucks for wine?"

Rafael ignored her.

"You get that your sixteen, right?"

"Mom doesn't mind when I do it"

"Oh, I bet she doesn't" he muttered feeling even more irritated if that was possible

"Yeah well rule change no doing it here, and defiantly no drinking in mugs."

"I didn't want you to see" Avri said her tone bland.

"Yeah cause half a bottle of missing wine isn't at all obvious"

She had the grace to hide her smile.

"Look I can get the first flight out of here if you want" she said finally.

"I don't"

Now she looked surprised. "You don't?"

"No" he said sitting down so he was facing her. She was in leggings and an old Harvard jumper the one he had sent her as a gag gift for her last birthday. It looked both well-worn and well washed.

"You can stay here"

Avri raised an eyebrow "I can?"

"Yeah, you know you're always welcome to"

"I thought you were mad at me?"

"For the wine yes, for this situation no"

"Oh"

"But Av, if you're staying here we need to have some ground rules. For example, no drinking, ever."

She rolled her eyes but he noted that she didn't argue.

"And a curfew"

Now she did look put out.

"Ten on school nights"

"You're kidding" she said looking extremely unimpressed.

"No, and eleven on weekends"

"Half eleven and I don't call you out on tracking my iPhone"

Rafael was about to point out that he wasn't going to do that and then caught her expression and consented.

"Fine"

She smiled then that genuine smile that she hid beneath all her sarcasm.

"Ok" she said grinning. "Can I go unpack?"

He nodded.

"Oh by the way" she said turning around her dark hair flying in a way that he knew models strove to achieve.

"Were gonna need a bigger bed for your spare room"

"Not tonight"

"Soon" she said turning around.

"And Dad" she said still smiling.

"Thanks"

"Yeah, yeah I'm wonderful I know" he said taking the compliment.

Avri smiled again disappearing down the hallway.

Rafael tried to hide his groan and then realised that he still had to call him mother and let her know that she now had access to her only grandchild and then really groaned.

A brave new world they were heading for indeed.

If it didn't implode on him that is.

* * *

 **And let me know what you think and if this is an idea worth continuing.**


	2. Embers

**Hi, so here is another chapter, I'm glad that you liked the story so much that you wanted a second chapter so here is the second one.**

 **This chapter deals with the Barba centric episode that is 15x06-October Surprise-This chapter does deal with Olivia asking some tough questions but I want to reiterate that nothing happened to Avri she just had a feeling that Alex was a creep and didn't consider it important. This is just her realising that her instincts were right.**

 **And let me know how you think, I might be a bit late updating because I am moving out and starting school again but I will try and update as soon as I can.**

 **Disclaimer-Nothing is mine, Just Avri.**

 **Please read and review.**

 **The next chapter will be a bit less episode specific so if certain events hit you then don't worry, only certain episodes in this story will be addressed.**

* * *

Prosecutor's Daughter

Chapter 2-Embers

* * *

For some reason, it worked. And it shouldn't have, but it did. Perhaps it was because as far as Rafael was concerned he had not been what one would call a brilliant father but for some unknown reason he and Avri began to work together and dare he say it, actually enjoy having each other around in the long term?

It was October, the wind was picking up, the leaves just turning to gold and Avri was now drinking three pumpkin spice latte's a day which to him was both disgusting and probably not good for her heath (though he didn't have much room to talk when it came to the caffeine intake) and the elections of the position of the Mayor of New York were finally upon them.

Fortunately, Alex did not seem to want to draw attention to his friends in the DA's office and for that Rafael was more than grateful for. The last he needed was for Alex to win and then some reporter in a case down the line accuse him of being political…or worse a defence attorney.

Avri was home when he stumbled in from a day from hell. Three appeals were coming up and he had lost motions in two. Plus, Alex had come to see him and now Eddie Garcia was up for rape. So, all in all he had a major headache and more than a desire to open a bottle and sit in the dark until the end of time.

He usually came home poured himself a scotch and ate whatever leftovers he had in the fridge but this time he came home to the sound of something cooking and what looked like the TV on showing the face of the man that had just asked him for a favour. Avri was stood by the stovetop prodding something in a pan and looking both irritated and confused.

"Oh god, what are you doing?" he asked slamming the door shut.

Avri didn't even turn around. "Cooking" she said shortly "And it's pasta, it's not great pasta but it's edible so there"

Rafael smiled in spite of himself. Alex was on the news and he paused to take in what he was saying.

"He came by before" she said dumping the pasta into the colander. "Looking for you, said he had to speak with you but he stopped by to make sure I got in ok, you know cause he payed for my ticket and…" she pointed to what looked like a lipstick. "Got me that, Bobbi Brown matte in red, that's like thirty bucks right there and difficult to get, so vote for him please."

Rafael snorted into his glass of scotch. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask why Alex would have given his daughter a plane ticket but then he decided not to know. She had not known Alex longer than a year but he supposed his friend was…charming? Anyhow he wouldn't know.

But yes. Somehow, they were making this work. Somehow, they were making this little domesticated heaven. It was nice to have someone to come home and be with when the days got too long and the work got worse and worse, Avri he found he was always something bright that he could look forward to coming home too. And he found that, that too made things easier.

She had started his school. His mother had been overjoyed that Avri was staying and within two hours had compiled her extensive contacts to come up with affordable, safe and flexible schools for Avri that didn't mind her dropping in in the middle of the semester. If Avri hiked up her skirt a little too high for his liking or consistently left her high heeled boots around so that he nearly broke his neck upon occasion and that the shelves were stocked with chocolate and carbs and there were schoolbooks spilling all over his table and the straightens and curlers were always still plugged in despite him constantly telling Avri that, that was a fire hazard then he found that he could live with that. Surprisingly.

It was shocking that despite the fact that he had had so little time with Avri when she was a child, how easily he could slip into being a parent with her now. But when he came home she found that he could be a parent to his daughter like it was easy, which on the whole was…unnerving.

Avri right now was in the process of cleaning up the table and dinner was rather enjoyable. Neither one of them were good cooks but he had to admit she had more practice than he did because growing up with her mother she had been alone a lot more and had decided to not follow her father's shining example of eating takeout most nights and toast the nights that, that didn't happen.

So yeah, so far so good.

But then the next morning he got the shock of his life.

* * *

To be honest that was nothing compared to what happened later on that week but more on that particular incident later. Right now the next day he was told that it wasn't Eddie whose life was on the line, it was Alex. The shiny boy that had practically walked on water his whole life was being investigated by SVU for witness tampering and God only knows what else.

And…oh yeah was apparently cheating on his wife…the one Rafael had slept with back when his marriage was in crisis and Avri was so small she could fit into the palm of his hand and wouldn't sleep through the night for anything.

Both this whole case and that whole nightmare that had been the affair was something he desperately didn't want Sargent Benson or Detective Amaro near nor he feel like sharing that intimate detail of his life around his daughter.

But that wasn't what made him mad. Alex stepping out on his wife with women that could only be described as in it for one thing didn't bother him, not nearly as much as Amaro who pointed out once they found out about the fifteen-year-old girl that Alex had been skirt chasing, that he had his own daughter about that age that Alex had a prior relationship with.

"I mean really" the detective had said looking at him with that knowing look that set Rafael's teeth on edge.

"Would she tell you if he'd tried something? It's not like you've been the most involved parent"

Had it not been for Liv and Rollins Rafael thought honestly that he would have punched Amaro in the squad room.

But those images in his head, his best friend so distorted and twisted with his daughter did nothing to distract him from that nagging itch that Amaro had fostered in his brain.

Nothing had gone on with Avri and Alex. Had it?

* * *

Amaro was solid police. Liv knew that, she had been working with solid police her entire career. But she knew the toll it took on them. Elliot had been a wreck for years and that haunted look in his eyes as he had crouched over that teenager's body had stayed with Liv for a long time even after Amaro and Rollins had come on board. There had been Fin, and John and Cragen. Cassidy, Jeffries, Lake to some extent and she had worked with some stellar DA's before Barba, Alex and Casey and Sonya.

But Amaro. Amaro was like a young Elliot in some regards and Liv was both too old and too tired to go back to when she was twenty and coming up with Elliot Stabler as her partner. Amaro had all the qualities of a good detective but the job got to them, it always did she would never deny that, it just got to Amaro more.

Perhaps it was the parenting thing, it had always been that with Elliot. Storing that nugget of information away for a day with no Brian and a bottle of wine she turned back to her computer and tapped her nails on the desk thinking. Barba had come close to punching Amaro who had handled this whole thing wrong but she couldn't deny that her partner might have a point. There was a very good possibility that Avri was embroiled in this scam. There was at least one fifteen-year-old they knew about, there was bound to be at least one more and Avri was in that age where technically she was legal even if it was by what? Months?

Liv didn't want to think that the future Mayor of New York was trying to flirt with his best friend's daughter. It was too twisted even for this job and by now she knew that nothing would shock her that much. And she liked Avri too. Ok, so she had met the girl once but everyone could see Barba looked…well…better since his daughter had arrived. He was smiling more, he looked like he was sleeping better and whenever Liv asked how his daughter was coping living in New York he always had something to tell her.

If there was something there, wouldn't it have come up by now?

She considered what to do. Barba would try and ask his daughter, now that Nick had put the idea in his head she was willing to bet that it was there to stay but she didn't think that it would be a very long or productive conversation.

Fuck it, she thought crudely. She would have a talk with the girl. And if something had happened then they could take it from there…and if something had gone on or there were pictures or snapchats or whatever it was these days then…if Liv was to casually leave Barba and this idiot in the same room for five minutes then…well…she had done a lot worse for people she cared a lot less for.

So, with that she shouldered her jacket and told Amanda that she was heading out for a while to clear her head.

School should be getting out right about, now shouldn't it?

* * *

Avri had taken the subway home because she wasn't that much of a snob and had let herself into her apartment kicking of her shoes. The school she was now attending was different from her old one and was more flexible allowing her to wear her own clothes, her schoolwork was still good, she had always been good with most subjects and thankfully a lot of work just seemed to slide across one school to the other.

There was a knock on the door and Avri stood up from where she had kicked of her boots and her socks and collapsed on the couch. She was wearing her old grey jumper and dark blue jeans that were ripped and she padded on her bare feet to the door and opened it.

It was the detective she had met once. She wasn't blonde so Avri was willing to bet that her name was Olivia Benson. She took Avri in with one measure of her eyes and Avri felt her back straighten in response to a threat or a gesture or a look between equals or whatever it was that instinctively made her feel like she was on guard.

"Hello" she said and Olivia smiled at her though there was something in that smile that Avri didn't understand or like. Her hand found the end of her braid that her hair was tied back in, thrown over her shoulder and she opened the door and Olivia Benson perfectly poised down to her boots which were far better than hers she noted with a shoe interest.

"Hi, so I don't suppose we've met before. I'm Olivia Benson I work in SUV with your father"

"I know" Avri said bluntly but then she remembered herself. "I'm Avri"

"I know" Olivia said and Avri nodded as Olivia took in the living room with her eyes. The room was messy she supposed. Avri had dropped her bag onto the black leather couch and the table they ate dinner on was strewn with books.

"Dad's at work if you're looking for him" she said finally when it seemed Olivia wasn't going to move.

Olivia stared at her for a second and then sighed. "He wasn't the person I was looking for, I actually wanted to talk to you."

Avri blinked and then shut the door nodding. She cleaned her bag of the couch and then sat down.

"Is this about Uncle Alex?" she said finally. Olivia nodded. "Do you know what's going on?" she asked finally. Avri shrugged.

"Just what news pop ups I got today at lunch, that he was under investigation for getting a woman he'd been having an affair with a job in the gaming department or something but to be honest I didn't read it"

Olivia Benson nodded and then crossed her fingers into her lap.

"Look…err…I would never dream of putting you in the middle of something that you might not understand, or the middle between your father and your…Uncle…but I gotta do my job and the only way I can do that is if I ask you some questions"

Avri suddenly wished she was anywhere else.

"Your Dad's friend will be under investigation not for witness tampering but for making sexual online advances with a fifteen-year-old girl and then paying her off"

Avri stared.

"Fuck" she said finally. Olivia Benson snorted and then looked away to hide what Avri knew was her smile.

"Yeah" she said finally her face composed. "But that's what I have to ask you about. I know your Dad said that your Uncle paid for your ticket to come from your Mom's out of state to here. Did he want anything in return for that?"

Avri stared at her. this could not be happening, could it?

"You mean…" she trailed and Olivia nodded.

"No, look I only know him through Dad and Mom knows him a little bit and he always said the last time I met him that if I needed anything then I could call him. I didn't want to but I was skint and on the verge of being homeless. He got me a plane ticket and had a driver take me back to his place so I could sleep. Hell, he wanted to call Dad from the off I just wanted a bit of time so that I could sleep and well…think but he's never…" she trailed of suddenly biting her lip.

She wanted to say that he had never done anything to make her uncomfortable but found that she couldn't say it. Alex had never done anything but there had been something…something when she had staggered of the plane near tears and sleep deprived and panicking and had fallen into that limousine that had made her sit up straighter and try to stay awake and she found that she couldn't put her name on it.

"Did he make you feel uncomfortable?" Olivia asked quietly. Avri shrugged because she honestly didn't know.

"Look, I don't know what happened with this teenager or what's gonna happen between him and Dad" she said finally. "But I had a feeling, whatever that's worth then that's what I had…he bought me a lipstick after that car ride as well" she said finally.

Olivia nodded as if this information did not surprise her and she patted Avri on the knee.

"Look I had to ask, I just wanted to make sure nothing had happened and that you were ok"

"Well I am" Avri said feeling slightly defensive. She knew Olivia Benson had a job to do but she didn't like being made to feel this way. Her Dad's oldest friend-at least that she knew was being investigated for sexing an underage girl ten day away from being elected near as dammit as the next Mayor of New York. And now a detective was asking his daughter if she suspected that this might be an ongoing pattern.

If she was part of an ongoing pattern.

This was going to put him in a wonderful mood she thought sarcastically.

"Does he know you're here?" she asked finally.

Olivia shook her head. "He doesn't have to know if you don't want him too" she said gently. "I just needed to know, and I think you needed to as well"

Avri nodded already feeling a migraine coming on.

Thankfully Olivia seemed to realise what was going on in her head because she smiled stood up and made her way to the door all with a fluid grace that Avri wished she could have. "I'll see you around Avri" she said and her tone was so impossibly gentle and almost motherly that Avri suddenly felt the urge to throw herself into the woman's arms and allow her to hold her until this feeling of being dirty even when you knew you had done nothing wrong went away.

She stayed curled on the couch for a long time after Olivia Benson left and turned off the TV so she didn't have to see what was going on. She had done nothing wrong, nothing had happened to her and yet she felt like a stupid little girl for some reason blinking back tears because she remembered how impossibly alone she had felt that night.

* * *

Her Dad came back around nine looking exhausted. And not the kind of exhaustion that came with a hard day's work, the kind of exhaustion that was bone deep. He slid onto the couch next to her almost and Avri watched him unfurling her knees at last.

"I heard" she said vaguely. Her Dad nodded his eyes closed.

"Oh, this is gonna be bad" he said finally and then he cracked one eye open.

"Avri did Alex…?" he trailed off.

Avri had already thought about what she was going to say. She had had a feeling about Alex nothing more and she didn't see the need to upset her father by stating any more.

"No" she said finally. "I would have told you"

Her father breathed a sigh of relief and then opened his eyes again.

"Fuck it" he said finally. "Get your boots on. Night like tonight deserves something good. Steakhouse sound ok to you?"

Avri blinked and then grinned because she was starving and she couldn't remember the last time that she had gone out for dinner with either one of her parents.

"Hey Dad" she said suddenly and he cracked open another eye.

"Yeah?"

"Love you" she said and it was almost like she was shy. Here again was something she could barely remember saying to either one of her parents.

Her Dad gazed at her for a second and when he opened his arms, Avri went into them willing.

This was going to be different she was sure of it. She hugged him back.

"Love you too Avri" he said finally. "Come on let's go get something to eat."

Avri nodded and when she shut the door and ignored the news updates flashing on her phone she found that it was getting a little easier to breathe.

* * *

 **And let me know what you think, I will try and update as soon as I can. **


	3. Friendly Fire

**Hi, so here is another chapter, this one is mostly centred around Rapist Anonymous-15x09-the next chapter will deal with the Lewis trial episode.**

 **Disclaimer-Nothing is mine. I will try and update as soon as I can.**

 **Please Read and Review.**

* * *

Prosecutor's Daughter

Chapter 3-Friendly Fire

* * *

Avri had been sat at the table flicking through online pictures of dresses when her father came home. That should have been her first indication that something was up because her father never came home before nine forty-five even now that she was living here.

"Get changed" he said dropping his briefcase onto the couch. "Liv wants us to come over for dinner"

Avri stared at him. If she was being honest, curled up on the chair in her loosest pair of jeans and a jumper getting up and getting dressed for a dinner thing with her Dad's work colleagues was not what she had in mind and she could tell that neither did he.

The last couple of weeks had been a nightmare. Avri had tried to not ask to many questions because she got the impression that he didn't like that and after reading one of the files he had left on the kitchen table while he went to take a shower she could understand why. When you looked at what could happen to women, men, children and the crimes that suffered it did kinda play on the mind a little and Avri had only read a couple of files.

Right now, she knew the whole squad was in trouble even if they were hiding it. There had been the case where they had accused a music teacher of inappropriate behaviour and it had turned out to be two sisters jealous. The DA's office was fighting their way through the lawsuit that came and then as soon as that was on the table there had been a rape with the coastguard that had resulted in them charging the victim with adultery.

Avri had only got that out of her father because he had come home after the arrest in a state of muted fury and even she had to admit that the idea of charging adultery as a crime was so outdated that she had twice asked if that was legal in disbelief.

Now there seemed to be a lull. Her Dad was home more and somehow, he didn't seem to struggle when it came to eating on time and going to bed at least before midnight and Avri supposed that was a good sign. She had asked her Abuela about getting some decent food delivered considering she never had the time and it seemed her father never did as well. Finally, they had food though her Abuela disapproved of groceries being delivered to the house and had thrown in three home cooked meals that she had made in between single handily running a school in the Bronx. So quite frankly the idea of being nice to people she hardly knew did not seem appealing.

And she did hardly know them. The only two people she'd had a conversation with were Olivia Benson (and Avri really wanted to forget that that conversation had ever happened) and the Captain who was nice but miles too old. Hell, Avri doubted he knew what Twitter was! She knew that there were at least three more detectives, a ME and a whole bunch of Rookies and she was unsure whether she wanted to jump into the lion's den that was the Special Victims Unit.

That being said, her Dad was already out of the shower and into what looked like a pair of jeans that quite frankly should have been banned as soon as he turned forty and perhaps even earlier than that. Avri turned her attention back to the dresses she was looking at. It wasn't like she was spending a lot of money but she felt like after the whole thing that came with her father's oldest friend being…well…a total lunatic and a creep to boot she had to confess that she needed a pick me up. And if she bought _another_ pair of boots then Avri knew she would probably get grounded.

"What do you think?" she asked showing him the three dresses that she had her eye on as he came back into the kitchen.

"Too short. Too expensive. Too Red" he said looking at each of them.

"How can a dress be too red?"

"Trust me it can be and that slit thing up the side is practically unnatural"

"You have no sense of fashion" she said shaking her head in mock dismay. "And just for that I am buying the red one" and with that she went to take a shower before her Dad could think of some witty comeback that would no doubt make them late while she tried to think of a way to combat it.

* * *

A few minutes, several tense pulls of her hair with a hairbrush before Avri concluded she had to tie it back into a messy knot and after a five second top up of eyeliner, foundation, blusher and red lipstick, they were pulling up in front of Olivia Benson's apartment building wearing black skinny jeans, a pink and white flannel shirt and her knee high, high heeled black boots she was feeling marginally better about trying to be nice to these people that she had never met before some of whom had, had fifteen years on the job together.

"Barba" Olivia Benson said opening the door. She had curled her hair, Avri noted and it made her look younger. That dark looks in her gaze that Avri had picked up on was not completely gone but it was masked under what seemed like half a bottle of red wine and some very good foundation covering the bags under her eyes. Avri had to find out what make up this woman used because she looked like she didn't age whatsoever.

"Avri" she said and then without warning she hugged Avri. Avri started a little because she was unsure what to do. Tentatively she raised her arms and hugged her back because what else was she supposed to do? Olivia Benson pulled back and smiled. "Come on in" she said finally and Avri stepped into the apartment.

The apartment was much the same size as their own. It was clean and the furniture was white which was braver than Avri thought. The table had been moved into the main hall and set with wine. Avri met Nicholas Amaro _"Call me Nick"_ , Captain Cragen who introduced her to his girlfriend Eileen who looked as nervous as Avri herself felt. Then there was Brian Cassidy who was a detective and Olivia Benson's boyfriend, Fin Tutuola whose told her to call her Fin and nothing else, and then finally there was the M.E. Miranda Warner. All of them seemed nice and Brian got her some iced water when it became clear everyone else was drinking wine which was a shame considering she would kill for a drink but she noted the Captain was also on water.

Somehow, she didn't feel as alone then.

Detective Amanda Rollins was not there, according to Nick she had to go to a group meeting for people 'with her problems you know?'-and then he shared a meaningful look with the Captain and Avri wondered whether they thought she was too naïve to understand that Amanda Rollins was either a gambling addict, addicted to drugs or an alcoholic and that she didn't know what meetings like that were.

Either way she sat down at the table watching them closely. It seemed that they all liked to talk work even when they weren't at work. Olivia had been working with Special Victims alongside her captain for nearly fifteen years, Fin behind her with one-year gap between them and Melinda had been the M.E for at least a decade. Therefore, they had seen and done a lot and dealt with the crazy.

Avri knew that New York had its fair share of crazies but this…some of the stories she was hearing were so far-fetched had she not seen the deadly serious expressions on everyone's faces she would have thought that they were making it up as they went along.

After a rather horrific yet somehow amusing story over dinner of pasta mixed in with bacon, mushroom and onion, that seemed to involve a man who stuck someone else's blood into his veins to hide the fact that he was a murderer and another story that seemed to involve a man that had kept women in a basement for months until one of them cut his balls off on the Subway platform to which Avri privately thought was a long time coming.

Desert was just cheesecake and Avri realised that she and the newcomer Eileen had barely spoken two words to the other people so engrossed they were in the stuff that they did and saw every day.

"And then there was the first case we worked with Barba over there" Olivia was saying catching Avri's eye when she came to get the coffee mugs.

"Yeah" Nick said gritting his teeth slightly. "Right dirt bag that one. Liked belts and strangling women who were into belts…took it too far and then used it against them in court."

"Wait…" Eileen said looking at her new boyfriend or whatever it was that they were. "Was that the one where she wrote the porn book or whatever it was? I remember watching it on the news. Horrible story"

"Yeah" the Captain said looking somewhat delighted that she knew what they were talking about.

"And Barba over there knew that we were losing" Olivia continued and Avri shot another look at her Dad while she was spooning sugar into her coffee and saw that for once he looked a little… _embarrassed?_ Oh, this was going to be good-whatever it was.

"So, he tricks the guy into showing the urges he gets when he has a belt in his hand. And your father takes of his own, wraps it around his neck and gets the guy to pull so hard that he almost collapses on the courtroom floor"

Avri spat a mouthful of coffee back into the mug in shock. Taking the napkin that was offered she wiped her chin and turned in shock to her father who was looking sheepish.

"You did what?" she said in a tone that was not good.

Her father shot her a look that was half warning, half amused at her reaction but Avri couldn't think of anything less amusing in her life.

* * *

However, she waited until they were walking back before she causally exploded.

"Why the hell did you let him do that?" she asked once they had hit the sidewalk.

"Because I needed to win, and I suppose I wanted to prove myself to the SVU squad" her Dad shrugged. Avri stared at him.

"Wonderful" she muttered. "And you had a go at me that time when I was thirteen and wanted to prove myself" she rolled her eyes as her Dad turned to her.

"Yeah, cause spending all night in December with a group of teenagers in skinny shorts in the middle of the ice rink trying to prove which one of you was the hardest was not stupid in the slightest" he said sarcasm coating his tone.

Avri ignored this before a truly wicked thought came to her and she couldn't stop herself smiling.

"Hey, does Abuela know that you let a guy choke you with a belt to prove a point?"

That sure as shit wiped the smile of her father's face.

"Anyhow" he said rapidly changing the subject. "Thank you for coming tonight. I know you didn't really want too. Truth is I kinda liked showing you off too everyone"

Avri blinked. "They barely said two words to me" she said because it was true.

Her father grinned. "Doesn't matter if they did, they all took notice of you. That's something"

Avri considered it, then she shook her head trying to hide her grin. Her father threw an arm around her and hugged her close to his side and Avri grinned a little bit more. It was so easy she mused, being close to her Dad in a way that it never was when it came to her Mom.

And with that they walked home.

* * *

However, it was the next day that Avri realised why Olivia Benson jumped whenever a noise was a bit too loud and why she looked at everyone a little bit harder than before-like she was an enemy.

Because the next day, while her father was working on finding a way to discredit Amanda Rollins without blowing up his working relationship with her he dropped a load of trial files that were pending onto the table.

That was the day she learned about William Lewis.

* * *

Rafael had just come home after what could only be described as a nightmare of a day. Not only was he going up against another old foe in the courtroom but he had to contend with Rollins, who was supporting her friend and then he had to pick apart her private relationship with her sponsor so he could win the case which needless to say had not left him in a very good mood.

Wishing he could wash away the swirling guilty feeling that was sitting in the pit of his stomach with a good scotch he opened the door to his apartment expecting to see Avri sat at the table either working on an essay or watching late night TV. She had a habit of waiting up for him and to tell the truth he found it rather nice, it was nice, having someone to come home to and while he tried to hide the worst of the crimes that he had to prosecute it was kinda good to have someone to talk through some of the problems. In fact, he was kinda gearing up to asking her to sit through a trial because he was unsure. If he pulled something like choking himself to prove a point in court Avri might go through on the threat to call his mother and tell her and then he would never hear the end of it…or worse…she'd leap over the table and hit the defendant which would be funny…but would probably end up with Avri getting arrested and he really did not need that headache.

However, Avri was not sat at the table, nor was she curled on the couch. Rafael dumped his briefcase on the table where he had thrown a load of files that he did not intend to take to the office. Thinking she was in her room he moved to pop his head through the door when he caught sight of something in the hallway.

It was Avri. She was clutching her knees to her chest and her dark hair was covering her face and in a second he knew that something was wrong.

"Av…what happened?" he asked dropping down next to her. Avri looked at him. She was not crying, but there was a strange look in her eye that led him to believe that she had witness something truly bad. Then he caught a look at what was next to her and the bottom of his stomach dropped out.

It was William Lewis's file. He had taken it home to prep for what he knew would be a brutal questioning. The trial was up and coming and he knew that Liv was not prepared and there was no way that he was not making this a number one priority. But he had taken the file home and left it on the table thinking that Avri just wouldn't think it interesting enough to read it.

Boy had he got that wrong.

"Sorry" Avri said finally. "I didn't want to read it you know. It was just there and to be honest the last couple of files were kinda…interesting…I don't know if that's the right word but this…" she shook her head.

"This makes me feel sick" she said in a whisper.

Rafael moved so that he was sat next to her and pulled her close. Avri folded into his embrace like it was natural.

"It's ok" he said finally but it wasn't. What William Lewis had done to those women had been horrific and what he had done to Liv…He had wanted to keep this from Avri for as long as possible though he had no doubt that this trial would be big in the media.

"He's…" she shook her head as if words had failed her and that didn't sit right with him at all. Avri was always chatty sometimes a little bit too much. "Just make sure that you but him away" she said finally. "I'll be alright"

He hugged Avri closer to him. "I'll try" he said because what could he say? He'd been saying the same thing to Liv for a while but he didn't know honestly if he could pull it off. William Lewis had already slipped past him once and he didn't know what kind of tricks the bastard still had left to play.

Avri nodded once, if she thought he was overreaching she didn't say it but the thought of Lewis's eyes and that grin when he looked at his next victim and they didn't know it made him grip her tighter.

Yeah.

Between him and SVU, somehow, someway, William Lewis was going down.

* * *

 **And let me know how this is.**

 **Also I am not a native Spanish speaker so any translation of the word grandmother was done via google translate. **


	4. Ill Boding Patterns

**Hi, so here is another chapter, I apologise for the lateness of it it's just weeks of uni work have finally caught up on me...**

 **So this chapter deals with the trial of William Lewis and the aftermath leading up to a major plot a few chapters down the line so stay tuned...**

 **Disclaimer-Nothing is mine.**

 **Please Read and Review.**

* * *

Prosecutor's Daughter

Chapter 4-Ill Boding Patterns.

* * *

William Lewis's trial was looming over them constantly for the next few weeks. The media behind it was intense even if rape shield kept both Liv and the other woman out of the news by name but it had been the kidnapping and attempted rape of a police officer that had drawn every reporter out from their hole desperate for details.

Rafael could handle the press. This had not been the highest profile case he had worked-he had had cases even before he transferred to SVU and he knew the rules, do not speak to the press, do not even look at them when you see them and do not lose your temper in front of them. The last one in particular, was the one that he considered the most important because nine times out of ten that was the one that he generally ended up breaking.

But with this trial he thought perhaps the press might be more centred on the DA and what he wanted to do not with what he was going to do as the Prosecutor. The only deal on the table worth considered had been shut down vehemently by Liv who he supposed had the right to decide whether or not to take it. Personally, Rafael thought that a deal which ensured that Lewis did life without the possibility of parole was worth the pain that would come when Liv was cross-examined and ultimately forced to both lie on the stand and relive what had happened in those four days.

Rafael said lie because he wasn't an idiot. Lewis had been handcuffed to that pipe, he knew it, Liv knew it and SVU knew it but he had decided a long time ago-way before this trial started that he wasn't going to question the official story and he found that somehow even though he was violating the code of ethics that he had learnt in law school he was sleeping through the night just fine.

But that didn't mean he had suddenly gotten in the habit of taking his car out of the garage (which he barely used) and driving Avri to school and picking her up. It was strange. He never used to drive anywhere. The car, the Mercedes was simply a gift that he had granted himself when he found his first check that didn't need to be spent on either rent or his law school debt and had been a waste considering this was New York and most of the time you taxied around it was strange that he used the car but he wanted Avri to arrive at school without the media circus that swarmed whenever someone recognised him as the prosecutor that was taking on what was quickly shaping up to be the 'Trial of the Century' or so it was being called on whatever social media device Avri chose to read that day.

"I mean really" she said one day over breakfast that consisted mostly of him downing his forth cup of coffee and Avri picking apart her toast with a long finger. "This is not the trial of the century. That was OJ even I know that and you are defiantly not one of OJ's lawyers"

Rafael didn't really know what to say to that so he decided to focus on drinking his coffee before he drowned in it which considering the pressure that was on him to win this case-was a considerable option.

However, he found that Avri's presence as messy and as loud as it was, was almost soothing to him. It was nice to come home and see her there doing homework and it was her that encouraged him to eat and get some sleep when she woke up and found him pouring over case files. Half of the time she spent the night with him watching TV with her headphones in while he looked at medical reports of girls not much older than her being raped and mutilated at the hands of a sociopath. He swallowed bitterly and then he looked up and Avri would be watching her dark eyes filled with concern.

Since her initial reaction to the case file of William Lewis, Rafael had hidden the details from her as much as he could but nothing could compare to him seeing Avri dressed in a short (very short if you wanted his opinion) black dress with a white collar and her boots with the high black heals in which he had been told and shown a receipt for how different they were to the other pair she usually wore on the first day of the trial.

"Bit fancy for school" he commented. A part of Rafael knew what was coming, and a combination of his daughter's intense-yet somehow manipulative charm that he knew she got from her mother and her stubbornness that he knew she got from him-made him know even before she opened her mouth to tell him what her plan was, that he would be powerless to stop it from taking shape.

"I am coming with you to the trial" Avri said in a tone that reminded Rafael so much of his mother that for a moment he felt the urge to turn around and double check whether or not she was standing there behind him coat in hand ready to follow.

He wanted to say no. He really did. There was the topic of school and the fact that he never wanted Lewis to so much as even breath the same air that Avri was breathing but a part of him, the selfish part that stoked his ego, wanted to show off to his daughter as well as have her there as a sort of strength when the details of the crimes got so bad he could barely force himself to talk.

Avri shook out her dark hair so it flew over her shoulders and stood there watching him. The earie thing was, was that Rafael thought she understood somehow everything that was going through his mind.

"I know" she said suddenly and her eyes were so very soft. "But I wanna be there. For Olivia and you, I know the hell this trial has brought. Besides…" and here a little bit of that spark returned to her eyes, "You always do go on about how you're the best and I should see it sometime"

And with that she swept out of the apartment with an air of someone going to an unpleasant dinner with the In-Laws.

Rafael had to say he was not so much stunned as he was proud.

But he would never say that to Avri. There was a good chance he would never hear the end of it and there were already enough shoes cluttering up (and dare he say chipping) his hardwood floors. Instead he decided to just shut the door and shut his mouth.

Today was going to be bad enough as it was.

* * *

Avri had never actually been in a courtroom before and was not at all surprised to see that it looked exactly how one looked on TV. Most of the time she sat down while her father busied around with his papers. Olivia and the rest of the SUV Squad were testifying and Amanda Rollins was up first so therefore the rest of the Squad couldn't come in. Next to her was Captain Cragen who immediately shuffled so she could sit next to him-he was not testifying but was sat there with a face like stone. Next to Avri was a man that introduced himself as Brain Cassidy and as 'Liv's Boyfriend'. She was sat between the two of them and as they kept glaring at the table that housed the defence even before William Lewis arrived, she somehow didn't think that was an accident.

William Lewis was rather…unnerving to see in person because the truth of the matter was, had Avri not known what he did and who he was she might have found herself talking to him. He had an air of arrogance that much was surely clear but looking at him with his scars and his hearing aid in his suit she honestly knew she would fall into the trap that so many other women had fatally done and that made her pause and lean back a little in her seat.

She tried, God knows she tried to keep her eyes on her father while he took the SVU Detectives to task about the events that had taken place in the house where they had found their friend. It seemed that Lewis was trying to paint it as a conspiracy among the detectives to allow Olivia time to beat Lewis while handcuffed to the bed with a metal pipe.

Personally, Avri wouldn't blame them if they had even though it was clearly just a way for Lewis to get under their skin. Watching Nick nearly explode with rage she felt like she could understand why they would want their friend to beat the bastard until he was dead not just deaf or whatever it was that he was claiming to be as a result of whatever had happened.

Going to this trial had been both about supporting her dad and seeing how much she was made off. It was a combination of her ego which was a family trait she knew without hesitation and the need to make sure that her Dad was ok, that he wasn't going to stay at the office until the early hours of the morning drinking his own weight in scotch in order to try and forget the pictures that had already been shown to the jury and she imagined that some of them would be leaked come the ending of the day. Somehow, she had a feeling that when it came to the prosecution of the worse of the worse criminals imageable she was going to have do this a lot often because the way his hands seemed to be gripping files whenever he had a moment were surely unhealthy even by her standards of…well…not knowing her father in this detail.

It was rather unnerving really how much she was picking up on despite only being in town for what? A month or two?

But then her father had to go and introduce the medical examiner who not only talked about the injuries and torture that Olivia had suffered but who also went into copious amounts of detail about the deaths that had occurred along the way.

By the time he had finished and Olivia Benson had given her-truly horrific testimony-and the jury had been let out for the day Avri found that she was gritting her teeth and holding on hand on her stomach. The other she found was resting on her knee clenched into a fist and it was the Captain that patted her on the arm with a gentle smile when it was time to stand.

Her father was busying himself with some sort of question from Olivia and Avri took that moment to very quietly slip out through the door, into the nearest Ladies Room, hold back her dark hair and promptly throw up in the nearest toilet.

She was still retching when she heard the door to the stall open and she felt someone's hand rub her back.

"Hush honey it's ok, get it all out" came a gentle voice and she turned to see Amanda Rollins smiling at her. Avri nodded, finished, wiped her eyes and washed her mouth out with the bottle of water Amanda had passed her.

"Sorry" she said weakly. She hated this, she had never been so affected by something before such as this.

Amanda shook her head. "Nah honey, this doesn't even register on my gross-metre" she shook her head and sat down outside the stall. "Figured you'd disappeared for a cry or to vomit, kinda glad it's the second one, much easier to deal with. I'm Amanda by the way"

"Avri"

"I know"

"I…" Avri struggled to put into words but Amanda understood instantly. "I know" she said softly. "I know, don't think anything less of yourself. I've worked sex crimes and homicide and this is still one of those cases that I don't forget about, doesn't make you any less than your father's daughter I promise you"

Avri nodded weakly. She wanted to ask what was going to happen next but she already knew and she already knew deep down that she was going to be here to see the verdict through.

"There is nothing wrong with spending tomorrow at home" Amanda said gently. "Your dad gets that trust me"

Avri nodded and then allowed the older woman to help her to her feet and out the door and then her Dad was there, one hand around her waist and not caring how it looked Avri leaned her head on his shoulder and let him guide her down the hallway.

"Sorry" she said finally.

"Nothing to be sorry about" he said firmly. "Nothing you hear me? I shouldn't have let you come to this"

"That could have been me you know" Avri muttered hoping he would get the point. Her Dad sucked in a breath.

"Yeah it could have been" he said finally. "But it wasn't"

There was a movement behind them and Avri looked up to see Olivia Benson white to the face shaking her head pulling away from her boyfriend.

"There gonna know I lied" she hissed looking terrified.

Her Dad stiffened.

"Liv not now" he hissed. Oliva took one look from her Dad to her and then nodded biting her lip against a look of despair and then melting into the crowd.

And suddenly Avri understood.

"Come on my love" her Dad said suddenly and the nickname was as refreshing as it was new. It was strange that after a lifetime or so it seemed of distance from her mother that her Dad who she had always been separate from was making this so very easy.

But Avri was too mentally and physically exhausted to care.

* * *

Rafael had come home as soon as Liv's cross was over. Amanda and Nick were taking care of Liv as Brian had a shift and when he had mentioned prepping for sentencing Fin shook his head and said softly. "We got this, go home to your girl"

And so he had done so, the trail was now concluded and he had to wait to see if he really was as good as he knew he was or if Lewis had once again caught a lucky break.

Avri was sat at the table mug in hand looking better. It had been a mistake to take her to court to see Lewis in full and Rafael still couldn't shake the image out of his face of Avri in the place of some of the victims because she was right-it could have been her, she fit Lewis's profile and that…well…that was going to keep him up at night for a while.

"Hey" she said reaching for a fresh mug.

"You feel better?" he asked and Avri nodded once.

"Good" he said casting his mind about for something to distract them.

"Load up Netflix and I'll grab the Chinese takeout menu" he said finally.

And it was that that they did for two whole days before the jury finally came back with a verdict.

Avri was insistent that she come and considering the trial was over Rafael couldn't see a way to refuse her without it becoming a row. Instead he watched Avri put on her black dress clinch it at the waist with a belt and add a jacket and then pretended that it was her that needed the hand holding all the way up the courtroom steps.

She sat down next to Amanda and Rafael sent one look at Liv who had Brian's hand in a death grip and whose face seemed to be set in stone.

"Not Guilty"

Fuck.

"Not Guilty"

Fuck. He was going to do it again wasn't he? And this time he would be lose on the same streets as his daughter?

"Guilty"

Wait…what?

"Guilty"

It was not the full slew of charges but it was enough, he could put Lewis behind bars for life and everyone was safe.

He turned around fully prepared to congratulate Liv but Avri had thrown her arms around his neck and was hugging him like she had never hugged him before…ever…

Who was he to not enjoy the moment.

"Great job Dad" she said finally.

Lewis was being handcuffed as they pulled apart and she stepped out of the pew to stand next to him, it was then that he saw it.

Lewis had been grinning at Liv and then his expression turned to where he was standing, it flickered to Avri who was not looking at him and then to Rafael who had stiffened. For a second they locked gazes and then Lewis winked.

"Dad?" Avri was asking him something and Lewis was being led away whatever moment or whatever had taken place over.

"Yeah" he said unable to shake the chill off from that look.

"You wanna go grab something to eat?"

"Yeah" he said absent-minded.

Lewis was in handcuffs he told himself sternly that night looking at himself hard in the bathroom mirror. He was in jail, he would never be free again, Liv was safe, Avri was safe, he had done it.

He went to bed and slept good that night for the first time in a time longer than he cared to count, and didn't think about the mass murderer's eyes on his daughter alight with glee for a long time. He had nothing to worry about. There was nothing Lewis could do.

Nothing for at least another four months.

In four months' time Rafael's world would come crashing down around him.

But that, is a story for another time.

* * *

 **Next chapter will probably be more episode loose as we head through some more episodes of Season 15**

 **And hopefully I will update as soon as I can. Let me know what you think. **


	5. Sleeping Monsters

**Hi, so here is another chapter, this one mainly centers around the episode 'Comic Perversion' in Season 15 which is one of my favorites, here you have Avri struggling to realize that men that she could trust and find charming could be found guilty of heinous crimes and a little budding friendship with Rollins as well. Please remember that Avri is only sixteen in this so she is a little bit trusting and naive. Also I took issue with the way Liv spoke to Barba in this episode so this chapter touches a little on that. And Rita joins us and she is just a fab character to write so enjoy.**

 **I do have a laptop problem at the moment (insert eye roll) so I will try and get the next chapter posted but please be aware it could take some time.**

 **Disclaimer-Nothing is mine.**

 **Enjoy.**

* * *

Prosecutor's Daughter

Chapter 5-Sleeping Monsters.

* * *

The weeks following William Lewis's trial was filled with cases that seemed to be more on the…well…challenging side. Captain Cragen had retired, Rafael had not known about this until the days following when he had been informed via email that Liv was now commanding officer of SVU. In hindsight he was actually a little pissed off a little that she didn't tell him and while he thought that nobody was better suited to running a department that she had spent her entire adult career in he had to admit that he was surprised that no sooner had the ink dried on the paper of Lewis's sentencing the Captain had given Liv a promotion and left her a massive workload to contend with.

However, he didn't have much time to question Liv's new promotion because the cases she kept throwing his way to prosecute were getting harder and harder. Sometimes he thought that she was struggling to cope and sometimes he thought that perhaps she was relishing the role perhaps too much and wanted to prove that she wasn't a victim and that she could rise to the roll without any trouble.

Somehow that seemed more likely especially when she handed him a case that seemed to involve the gang BX9 and a girl that had not only been gang-raped but had orgasmed more than once. It was heartbreaking and infuriating because truth be told while Rafael understood that this was a tragic case that should not have happened he knew that without co-operation from the victim then it would just be thrown out. Liv spent a great deal of time annoyed that the victim's father had backed out after he, his wife and daughter had been viciously attacked but Rafael thought of Avri and knew that Liv didn't understand what it was like to look at a victim and see your own kid staring back at you.

Because on some of the cases involving teenagers he found that he was coming home and seeing Avri in their places. Teenagers who had been in the wrong place in the wrong time or teenagers that had trusted someone they shouldn't have. It had been frustrating when Avri had been a distant thought in his mind but now she was living with him he was suddenly very aware that the world was a very dangerous place more so than he'd thought.

That case had been a nightmare and the ones she kept sending to him were nightmares too. There had been the one where three children had been found with sex offenders including a baby boy that had Liv was apparently invested in.

And that wasn't even considering the amount of crap that came from the whole federal New Jersey case that had ensured so much paperwork that he didn't see Avri face to face for two weeks. SUV were taking cases with no clear-cut way and he was worried that Liv was going to slowly drive herself insane trying to prove that she wasn't the same woman that had been handcuffed to the bed and tortured by a lunatic for four days.

Avri thought he should just tell Liv that she needed to calm down, but Rafael ignored her on this. Avri was more like her mother in the regards that she would say what she thought regardless of what the other person had been through. Now Rafael was no saint in that regard, but he had to admit that he wouldn't immediately swing accusations at Liv when she was still new to the role of commanding officer.

Maybe this would all blow over?

"Bullshit" was all Avri said when he passed that thought.

And then the final nail in the coffin came in the case of a popular (depending on who you asked) comedian who was being charged with rape. The only problem was the case was circumstantial at best, the victim was hardly reliable, and that was before you got to the point where Rafael was certain that the only reason Liv was pushing this thing to trial was because she had joined forces with a college girl who seemed to dislike this guy because he made rape jokes.

Now Rafael was a father and had been a prosecutor for pretty much all of his adult working life and while he loathed idiots who made jokes about rape and the people who thought they were funny, but he was a big believer in the first amendment and that unfortunately meant that he couldn't prosecute someone for what they thought of what they said though he no doubt suspected that one-day Liv would ask him too.

And while he wanted nothing more to do than to stop people thinking rape was some sort of funny joke he honestly wasn't sure if he wanted to go up against Rita Fucking Calhoun again without an iron clad case and a…slightly more reliable story.

Rita and he had been friends since they had both started at the DA's. they both had been fiercely competitive prosecutors never mind now they were on opposing sides and even though they somehow still managed to stay the occasional friends and drinking buddies whenever the work in private practice and prosecution got so shady they both needed to upload to the other.

But that didn't mean that he was suddenly looking forwards to taking her on in court. Rita was dedicated to her clients at best and not above bringing personal shit into a case. Which to be honest was why Rafael had been somewhat surprised to see her name on the defence counsel because he knew as well as he knew Rita that she abhorred behaviour and language like the kind Josh-whatever his name-was polluting.

Though then again Rita was a staunch believer in the first amendment being untouchable by the courts so that might have something to do with that.

But he had also somehow not mentioned Avri to Rita and when she found out (and Rafael knew that she was going to find out) he knew his oldest sort of friend was going to be pissed and that weather or not he was in court or outside of it he was going to get a verbal smackdown.

Outside of court was perhaps less humiliating however.

He shook his head looking over the paperwork one night. Yeah, Liv should have so not brought him this case.

And that was before the victim took the stand and practically committed perjury.

By that point. Rafael was almost prepared to commit murder himself. And that was before Liv got on the stand.

* * *

Avri had been lounging in her Dad's office. School had just been let out and she had taken the subway over to the courts because she had needed him to sign a form getting her out of the cross-country match at school. It wasn't that Avri was a terrible runner it was just that…she was a terrible runner. Hopefully her Dad would be too busy to see what he had just signed and the coach (who was male) would take one look at 'women's trouble' and run for the hills in the opposite direction.

But that was before he slammed open the door looking furious with another woman on his heels. She was tall and graceful and Avri thought her shoes were amazing. She all but dumped her briefcase in the chair as her Dad went straight for the crappy coffee and then the two of them started having a heated debate about the first amendment and the ethics of rape comedy.

Ah, so this was about the Josh Galloway trial.

What? Avri had social media.

"Honestly Barba, while I agree the man's words might be misconstrued by some of the more idiotic youth of today, I don't think putting him on trial for something that there is no evidence he did is the right way"

"Rita, I have told you this has nothing to do with politics, he raped a girl simple."

"Oh please, this has Olivia Benson making a name for herself scrawled over it, and don't disagree I heard what you said to her. I sympathise with what she's been through Barba you know I do but you leave it at the courtroom door, first lesson of public service. And if it hadn't been Olivia Benson sending this case to you, you wouldn't have touched it"

Avri hated to admit it but she thought the woman…Rita…might have had a point. She had been following this case on the media and she found that was a lot more interesting than speaking to her Dad about his work. Her father didn't seem to understand that while the majority of people found Josh Galloway distasteful at best a lot of them didn't understand the difference between drunken sex and rape and Avri supposed that it did look a little bit like a settlement waiting to happen.

Rita looked around swilling the coffee cup in her hand and saw Avri sitting there watching with interest. She paused and for someone who had just noticed a stranger sitting in the office she did not look too concerned. She took a sip of coffee and then said as if she was commenting on the time of the day.

"Barba there is a teenager sat at your desk"

Her Dad jumped and turned around "Avri" he said in surprise. "How did you…where's Carmen?"

"Coffee break"

"Oh"

"Barba" Rita said again "Why is there a teenager sat at your desk?"

"Oh…err…Avri this is Rita…Rita…god help me this is my daughter Avri"

Rita's eyebrows shot to the top of her forehead.

"Wait is this the daughter that you never see from that monster bitch of an ex-wife of yours?"

Avri stared at her, well, the shoes she was wearing were fabulous, almost made up for the complete lack of human decency. And people thought she was tactless.

"Thank you for that Rita" her father said through gritted teeth. "Avri meet, Rita Calhoun she is defence counsel on my latest case which you no doubt know about because it seems to be a google alert at the minute. And she is just leaving"

Rita eyed him for one long moment and then swept out of the room.

"Well she seems nice" Avri said finally. She shook her head and then turned to her Dad and held out the form. "Sign this" she said finally. Her Dad signed it and Avri had to contain a smile when he didn't even decide to look at it. She shook her head.

"Tough case?" she asked delicately. Her Dad laughed once handing the form back to her. "I suppose you know about Josh Galloway and that video post and now I think I've gone and pissed Liv off which is never a good thing to do. If you must know I asked her if this case was about her ego. God knows she's pushing it so far…keeps talking about it being the right thing to do and then there is the fact that she was just put on the stand for the first time since Lewis and somehow she still manages to make me seem like the bad guy"

Avri felt a flare of anger flicker through her at the tired look on her Dad's face and she swallowed again looking down at her hands because she honestly couldn't stand the thought of him looking and feeling so exhausted and helpless because Olivia kept brining him cases that he wasn't sure if he could win. That meant that there was a victim that was struggling with her ordeal and there was a possibility that her Dad could make things worse by promising something that he couldn't deliver.

"Do you want me to go?" she asked finally. Her Dad opened his mouth and then finally nodded. "I have court in half an hour and I need to prepare my notes and well…my mind"

Avri smiled at him though she had to confess she was a little bit nervous about leaving him on his own. Finally, she sighed, wonderful, now she was feeling guilty about using him to get out of gym. Ugh.

"Ok…" she said finally. "Look I've been meaning to thank Amanda for you know…what she did when…when I was last in court, so I'll swing by there and just say thanks and then I will see you after closing arguments?"

Her Dad nodded without looking up from his papers. Avri sighed and then left the room closing the door quietly when she left. She swallowed again and hoped against hope that he would remember to take his migraine medication before he went to court and that he took the right dosage. Honestly, sometimes she wondered how the hell he had managed to live on his own without her and you know…still managed to eat and sleep.

Just as she was about to get into the elevator to go to the courtroom someone barged into her sending her bag flying into the small space.

"Bastard" she muttered at the retreating clerks back.

There was a low chuckle from the back of the elevator and then someone handed her, her bag back. She looked up and felt her eyes widen in shock. Standing there was Josh Galloway. He raised his hands when he saw her and despite everything that was being said about him Avri didn't feel like she was on edge. She smiled back at him. She wondered if this was how it was gonna be when she was living with her Dad. Looking at every picture of every suspect in the files scattered across her coffee table and wondering how or why they had done what they were being accused for.

"Don't worry, I'm not gonna drag you by your wonderful ass and have my wicked way with you in the elevator."

Avri raised an eyebrow in what she had hoped was disproval, but she couldn't help but grin. How the hell could someone this charismatic be accused of such a heinous crime?

"You get that comment could be considered inappropriate what with the charges your facing and me being underage" she deadpanned. Josh Galloway laughed and then shook his head smiling at her. God for a sexist pig he did have a really good smile. There was a pause when she pressed the buttons and then Josh Galloway sighed as if he was put upon.

"I shouldn't be here you know" he said conversationally. "This is what comes when you sleep with pretty girls and they get attached. Hypothetically of course because of your age I wouldn't usually flirt with you but even if you were older I wouldn't do it. All of those broken hearts I leave behind because of this one girl"

Avri raised an eyebrow.

"Good God" she said finally. Josh Galloway winked at her.

"I wish" he said smiling. "And I also wish you were out of that uniform. Then I could take you for a drink and see those legs walking away. Highlight of a crappy week"

And now Avri was beginning to get uncomfortable. Flattery was flattery, actually Josh Galloway was kinda good looking in…an old way…but now she was suddenly aware that she was in an elevator with a man on trial for rape and her hackles were raised, almost like she had been when she had been in a car with Uncle Alex if she was even still calling him that-and her instincts had told her not to fall asleep in his car.

"Flattery, flattery" she said finally.

Thank God, the doors choose that moment to open. She stepped out and then saw Amanda Rollins stood there at the door checking something on her phone. Olivia Benson was talking to a college student that Avri didn't recognise but as she passed to speak to Amanda Rollins, Josh Galloway winked at her as he walked into court. Amanda watched him as he swept away looking like he wanted to take both of them to a bar and pump them with whiskey and take them home.

"Hey Avri, you ok?" Amanda said and Avri turned to look at her.

"Yeah" she said finally.

"He didn't do anything?" she asked finally and Avri looked at her.

"No" she said truthfully because that was the truth. "Nothing happened. Nothing I couldn't handle anyway…he's…" she struggled to find a word to describe what had just happened.

"Charming?" Amanda asked and Avri nodded. Amanda sighed. "Honey" she said finally. "Most of them are".

"I wanted to say thank you" Avri said finally "For the trial, for what you did" Amanda stared at her and then smiled again as if she was surprised by the very idea that Avri wanted to say thank you to her for something that might have been considered basic manners.

"Your welcome hon, and don't worry about it, like I said, doesn't make you any less brave"

Amanda, she decided as she got a taxi back to her and her Dad's apartment, was honestly the nicest person she had met in SVU so far.

But was it really as black and white as she had imagined it? William Lewis might have been an exception, he was a different level of scumbag that much she knew but was it going to get to the point where she would see images of men who were suspects and not know the difference? Fuck this was screwed up. Was she really getting this jaded? How the hell did Olivia and Amanda deal with it.

Perhaps it was best that she didn't go snooping through her Dad's files anymore. Yes, perhaps that was for the best she thought sardonically. She wasn't even interested in boys or men of any kind and somehow, she thought that this encounter with Josh Galloway didn't help.

Much better that she forgot, that people like William Lewis and even men Josh Galloway to some extent existed.

The problem was that in the case of the former that was never going to happen.

But that was a story that will be told (unknown to Avri Barba) in approximately two months. And it would be a story that would change her forever.

* * *

 **Next chapter is the last one before we go into an arc that has serious implications for Liv, Barba and Avri so this story will be hotting up soon.**

 **And let me know what you think. **


	6. What You See, What You Fear

**Hi, so here is another chapter, this is a little bit shorter than the one before and it's mostly a non-specific chapter. The next one will be part of a major arc that will span for the end of Season 15 and the first part of Season 16.**

 **Disclaimer-Nothing is mine.**

 **Also I have decided this story will stop at Season 17 due to issues I have with both Season 18 and definitely Season 19. So this story should be ending with about 25 chapters.**

 **Updates might be a bit slower this time as I tend to do one mass update of two or three chapters at Christmas due to my workload before the holidays so please keep that in mind.**

 **Please Read and Review.**

* * *

Prosecutor's Daughter

Chapter 6-What You See, What You Fear.

* * *

Avri had been sat at the kitchen table when her Dad came in. He had slept in or to be more precise Avri had let him sleep in my unlocking his phone and deactivating the alarm. It was Sunday for crying out loud and she was not convinced that her Dad took good care of himself as she had learnt when she had opened the fridge on the first night that he was certainly not feeding herself. However, that had been solved easily because Avri was the child of two workaholics and an accident at that and had learnt a long time ago that she had to fend for herself and by fending for herself so a long time ago she had learnt to cook and cook she did.

Her Dad came in looking sleep rumpled but more relaxed than he had seen her in a while and she looked up from her coffee to listen to the chime that mean that there was a news update and then when she went to check on the news app on her phone she felt her eyebrows go straight to the top of her head.

"Dad"

"Yeah Avri?"

"Sorry to ruin your Sunday but I think you ought to know that Jimmy whatever his name is from the Ledger is claiming that the girl raped in Central Park was making it up and there is not hate crime"

There was a pause where her father stood there for a second and then he crossed the kitchen floor with a stride that made him look almost put together. It was frightening really how well he could pull his shit together and focus on his job. He read the news app and then the story on Avri's phone and she took that moment to finish the last of her coffee and to slide some toast onto her Dad's place because she was damned if she was going to watch him run out the door on a Sunday without eating something first.

God Damn it how the hell did her father survive before she turned up?

"Shit" her father said finally. "How the hell did he get that idea, I practically had to duct tape the lips of half of bloody squad shut that there was no leakage. Liv swore up and down that nobody was telling him anything and that was before…well…" he trailed off and Avri who had kinda lost the thread of this conversation somewhere around the town Olivia was mentioned. She took a deep breathe and watched as her Dad went from relaxed individual to exhausted lawyer in the space of a second. He muttered something about going for a shower and Avri watched as he got dressed and went to work on a Sunday because someone in either the ME's office or under Liv's command had let loose to the press about a case that she knew was soon going to explode in the public eye.

* * *

Rafael was on the verge of a migraine. And a really, really bad migraine at that, the kind that made you want to curl up in bed with blankets and the lights blacked out and you try to sleep for a week. This case that had already been complicated due to the victim lying at least twice, had gotten even more complicated when this damn reporter got involved and Rafael didn't need any more pressure to get a conviction, not when the PC, the DA and the mob outside all wanted to know how a reporter got an inside scoop on a rape case and had got it seemed, all the false details, the real ones and everything and anything other than the victims name.

And to make matters worse he was pretty sure Avri was worried about him and that was never good. His daughter and he had formed a rather comfortable relationship with each other over time but there was still the simple matter of fact that she was spending most of her time watching him work and that was not healthy. He had not heard her mention at any point, any friends that she might have made at school, there had been no mentions of boys which he wasn't sure if that was a good thing. And what was really bugging him was that he had no leg to stand on because fundamentally he knew that he didn't know that well what was going with Avri because he didn't know Avri that well.

That was the simple truth, he loved his daughter but his visits had been confined most of the time that she was growing up to the holiday's and soon enough that plan had changed time and time again and that had left the last couple of years to SKYPE calls and the occasional email.

There was a pause when he sat there massaging his temples and thinking hard. This case was sending him up the wall. Jimmy 'Whatever his Name' or whatever it was that Avri was now calling him was constantly on the DA's back and that meant that the DA was constantly on his back.

God he hoped Mike Cutter and Connie got their shit together so Mike could run next election. He really needed a boss that understood what it was like to be in the trenches and not what it was like half a century ago.

He turned back to the case and then finally shut the file. This was going to be a nightmare from the beginning and he was going to struggle with proving this case anyway. Too many false stories and too many complications. He would take it to trial because it was the right thing to do and because there was no other way that he could survive his time at the place where he worked then he would have to get on with the case that had been handed down to him regardless of the interfering detectives and reporters and civil that kept his mind on the case, his head hurting and his thoughts away from his daughter who he decided that once this thing was over he was taking out to dinner.

To inquire about her education that he was paying for…you know…not to pry.

* * *

Avri had known something was up as soon as he came through the door and told her that they were going out for dinner. Her Dad was not the best at keeping secrets or perhaps that was just because Avri had, had a lifetime of reading people due to the fact that her mother had always maintained the hidden but no so hidden belief that Avri should be seen and not heard. He was up to something and she was willing to bet it had something to do with the hints that he was dropping during the _'Case Complicated by a Journalist and Don't Ask Me About It'_ that implied that he wanted to speak to her about school.

Why he wanted to do this Avri if truth be told had no clue because she had settled into school months ago and was doing very well. Ok so her grades in some subjects were average but even straight A students had a subject they loathed with a passion and Chemistry for Avri was that one subject.

But still she dressed in a rather nice blue dress that only had a little slit up her leg and her boots and black jacket and didn't say no to the steakhouse waiter when he asked did they want to order. Best to get a good meal out of this whole thing before it was spoilt by her father asking whatever it was that he wanted to reassure himself about.

There was a pause when they had finished ordering and Avri finally decided to ask why the reason for the strange behaviour when her father asked the first question beating her by a millisecond.

"You have friends right? I mean at school? It's just, your never out with people, and I worry that you've left your life behind to stay with me and nothing good is gonna come from it. I don't want you to think that you lost anything"

Her first honest thought was to honestly tell her father to grow up and stop being sentimental because if truth was being told she thought it was strange. Neither she nor her father were people to be overcome by a sentimental moment and she didn't want to go into her feelings with him, at least not yet. But then she thought about it and she found that she was oddly touched by him asking her. She wasn't sure if she was happy or not that he cared this much because in truth Avri had never really had a relationship with either of her parents before that and she struggled to adjust to it even now-months down the line to caring this much about what time someone got in, or what they ate or weather or not they had, had a good day.

It had never occurred to her that for once her father might be having the same problem, that they had been on opposite sides of a state line for so long that the whole concept of a day in day out relationship might be difficult. She took a sip of her iced water and thought on this.

If truth be told she was more than a little touched and more than a little confused about how to deal with the whole thing.

Finally, she forced herself to speak because her father was inches away from demanding her to talk and the last thing she needed right now was to be faced with ADA Barba instead of her Dad. She had seen him in court after all and while it pained her a little to admit it even to herself, he was a damn good in court as well.

"I'm good" she said finally. In truth she was, she had people that she was friendly with and she could have lunch with but she wasn't going to deny that most of the time she spent her time reading or in the library. She worked hard to get her grades and she wasn't going to deny that she spent time alone because she sometimes found the average sixteen year old too much to contend with.

There was a pause when her Dad stared at her and she stared back and the stare off where they both tried to figure out what was going on with the other because Avri knew this theory that she was somehow struggling didn't just happen overnight.

"Ok" her Dad said finally "I like spending time with you, I like having someone to take out for dinner and I know it didn't seem like it the last time because Rita was…well…Rita but I did like showing you off to her."

"You talked about me with your opposing counsel?" Avri asked after taking a bite of her starter which had just arrived. Her Dad shrugged reaching for the salt.

"Just the ones that really irritate me."

Avri sniggered. "I'm fine Dad" she said seriously "Thanks for asking"

Of course this conversation that was taking place was put on hold the night after when her father found out that a girl who had become a mother at Avri's age and suffered far too much in her short life. Avri had known something was up when he came home early and hugged her without saying a word, in truth she had known long before that, that something was up because of the little text messages that she had been sent all day seamed to hint that something was wrong.

She shrugged her shoulders that night when he ate in silence and then went and locked himself away in the shower. She wasn't stupid enough to wonder what was going on because she had seen the files months ago and had learnt that there were things that he wouldn't tell her and that she didn't want to know if all her cards were on the table.

But that didn't matter at all really, because the week following that dinner where it seemed that everything was going to be alright was ruined perhaps forever and Avri Barba finally got to really look a monster in the eye and knew what terror really was. It also let her into a secret that her Dad had been holding with Olivia Benson and it would pave the way for a very different relationship if truth be told.

But as we have said before. That is a story for next time.

* * *

 **And there we are let me know what you think and I will see you next time. **


	7. Clear And Present Danger

**Hi, so here is the first part of a multi arc and i hope you enjoy it.**

 **I should have another chapter posted by Christmas and i will give a better opening to the chapter then. For now please enjoy.**

 **Disclaimer-Nothing is mine.**

 **Please Read and Review**

* * *

Prosecutor's Daughter

Chapter 7-Clear And Present Danger

* * *

Rafael did not know that morning that his life was going to change. Neither did Avri. He didn't know over breakfast that morning that he was entering the worse forty-eight hours of his life and Avri didn't know that she was going straight into the fight of hers. Avri said goodbye that morning, told him clearly that she would be back by lunchtime because she had a half day today and then she was gone in a wave of dark jeans and a grey tank top and her long dark hair that to him didn't seem warm enough.

Rafael finished getting dressed and went into work feeling tired but ok over all. For once it had been an ok week. He supposed that Liv had now settled down into leadership and had begun enforcing her detectives to actually check facts before they brought him a case half thought through. Rafael hated many things and one of them was losing and he was not afraid to say it either. Losing to Rita was also humiliating in it's own private way as well he supposed and he would rather not get caught with his pants down-so to speak-in front of her, in open court again.

So therefore, when he was heading into work he didn't think much of what the day was going to turn out right. He was sat at his desk for nearly an hour when he decided that if there was going to be no new cases presented to him he may as well finished taking his notes on some others that he had been…ignoring so to speak. While he was stationed in Manhattan other DA's especially in Sex Crimes in the other five burghs sometimes wanted opinions on cases, it was fairly common and a nice way to learn new argument that might become saving graces in their own cases later on.

It was quarter past ten when his phone rang. It was Amaro.

"Detective" he said by way of a greeting.

"William Lewis escaped from custody this morning" Came Nick Amaro's reply.

Rafael sat up so rapidly he nearly sent his coffee flying.

"How?" he all but shouted not caring that Carmen could probably hear him.

"I don't know. We think it's something to do with his doctor and were looking for her now but…Liv's been taken off the case, 1PP has gone and given the acting command of SVU to some Lieutenant Murphey and now Liv's got protection from two goons and we don't know what the hell is going on"

There was a pause and Rafael though thankful he knew didn't know what Amaro was going to ask him to do.

"Amaro what do you want from me?" he asked feeling so deeply unsettled that all he wanted to do was drown himself in the half bottle of scotch he kept in the bottom draw in his desk and the migraine pills he kept in the top.

"Warrants, were going to need warrants and chances are were gonna need to ask forgiveness rather than permission on this account. We're gonna be kicking down the doors regardless"

Warrants, well Rafael could do that he could write up warrants, at least that would be something useful. There was nothing more to do than that, but god knows what that was going to do. He had a feeling that Lewis was not going to make it out alive of this one. Liv had barely left him alive the first time and then there was the fact that she had been alone for the most part. If Lewis involved anyone else in his plan Rafael personally wouldn't give a cent for his survival.

"Ok" he said remembering Amaro on the other end of the phone.

"And err…look…I rang Maria you know to talk to Zara so…I don't know If you wanna do the same but…"

"Yeah" he said finally swallowing hard before he hung up and breathed in deeply through his nose in order to get a better grip on his emotions. The thought of Lewis out there around people made him shudder. He dithered over the phone wondering weather or not he should call Avri and tell her to wait at the school until he could come and pick her up. He did not forget that look Lewis had shot his daughter as she had congratulated Liv when he had put him away and he did not forget that Lewis liked to make things personal. He had seen enough pictures and spoken to Liv when she was hollowed and broken to get a good enough knowledge of what that sick freak was capable off.

He rang anyway.

She picked up after two rings.

"Hey" she said and his daughters voice was so light and airy and clearly they had kept this from the press because had his daughter knew William Lewis had escaped she would probably find someway to kick down the door of his office even if he was in a meeting with the DA.

"Hey err…you still at school?" he checked his watch, if she was he could probably get a cab before the lunch rush began.

"No" she said simply. "Just in the lobby of our apartment building"

Well that was something.

"Ok I need you to get upstairs, into the apartment and then lock the door and stay there until I get back. Just trust me on this one ok? Please"

There was a pause as Avri took in what he was saying. Rafael knew his daughter well enough to know that she knew that something was wrong but clearly wasn't sure if she wasn't to know.

"Ok" she said finally. "Do you want me to…I dunno…you want me to come over instead? Whatever the hell is going on?"

"No" it might in hindsight have come out a bit more like a shout because he could practically hear Avri's raised eyebrows over the phone.

"Ok" she said finally. "I will walk straight up to our apartment and lock the door. Text when you are coming home"

"Thanks" he breathed through his nose again feeling a little bit more at ease once he knew that his daughter would soon be behind the safe, closed, locked doors of his apartment.

"I'll ring you when I get home ok? I'll tell you everything then ok?"

"Yeah sure" Avri said and he could hear her get off the lift in the background.

"Love you Avri" he said finally.

"Yeah…yeah…love you too Dad" Avri said and he could hear her smile over the phone before she hung up.

He didn't know that that would be the last time he would talk to his daughter for nearly two days.

* * *

Avri had dropped her bag on the floor, gone to the bathroom, kicked off her boots, socks and jacket and had just padded barefoot back into the kitchen when it happened.

There was a girl in her living room. She was wearing a pink parka and she couldn't have been older than twelve and she was crying, well…not crying per say but she was stood there looking stricken. Avri stared at her. She had locked the door when she had come in hadn't she? And even if she hadn't, was it possible for this girl to get all the way up to her apartment without anyone seeing her? What the fuck was going on?

"Hey" she said trying to sound kind rather than confused but she was pretty sure that was a failure from the off.

"How'd ya get up here kid?"

The girl simply shook her head and a couple of tears escaped.

"I'm sorry" she whispered, "I'm sorry, I am please…he made me"

Avri was just about to ask what the fuck was going on when there was a clicking sound behind her back and a feeling of such cold dread rushed through her that for a split second…for a split second only she thought she was going to collapse. That her knees would give out from under her and she would collapse on the floor. But something in the crying girl's face and quite probably something inside of her (weather it was bravery or stupidity she wasn't sure yet) made her turn around very slowly in order to face the gun pointing straight at her face and then upwards into the face of the man that was holding it directly at her.

Avri didn't scream though it was close. She found she couldn't move. For all her talk that in the event of a situation she would fight her way out of it-which had for the last sixteen years been how she would imagine it if this incident ever occurred-she found that she couldn't move. It was like she was frozen in a horrible combination of fear and shock and terror.

Because standing there in front of her, smiling like it was some sort of sick twisted game that he could never tire of playing and holding a gun was William Lewis.

The same William Lewis that had tortured, raped and killed all those women she had seen in those pictures, who had not repented or regretted even for a second the terror he had caused. Who had damaged Olivia Benson so much that she had spent the entire two months Avri had known her walking around like she was close to hitting the first person who came close to her.

The same William Lewis who she had seen in court and had watched as he had got life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Standing there in her living room.

She processed this in a second and then felt the panic rising in her throat at his sick smile so much so that she found she could move again.

And then his hand with the gun came down hard on the side of her head so that even if she did want to move, to offer some form of resistance or to raise something resembling an alarm she couldn't. Because Avri Barba had just crumpled to the floor of her own living room, completely unconscious and at the mercy of one of the worse serial killers in the world.

* * *

Amanda had gotten use to the feeling of constant dread that came whenever she thought of William Lewis, she had gotten use to the way the whole squad seemed to be on tender-hooks whenever his name or his crimes or his trial was mentioned but there was no John Munch to remind them that there was still light at the end of the tunnel or whatever it was that he used to say or do to make them at least grimace with weak humour and there was no Captain Cragen for them to lean on for support. There was nobody know but she supposed Liv and Amanda really didn't know how much she felt about that yet. The only person left at SVU who really knew Liv well was Fin.

They had fourteen years on the job together, everyone else Liv had started and built this department with had…well…retired including her old partner who Amanda knew she had put her heart and soul into working with. It was why she didn't comment much on how much Liv seemed to be working either with Nick or alone. You don't have a relationship in this job with a guy for twelve years and it not hurt like hell when he leaves.

But she was now forcing her way through the crowds trying to find a little girl who had been caught up in this mess through no fault of her own and she was really coming up empty. And it was scaring the hell out of her.

And then she found the backpack. There was no doubt it was Amelia's hell it had her name on it but as Amanda opened it ignoring all her training officer's advice that you shouldn't open packages left in crowed places by known psychopaths she noticed something strange. How many twelve-year olds did you know that had…had a blue bra and panties? How many twelve-year olds had…oh holy shit was that hair?

Suddenly without caring that Nick and Fin were stood right there and that Murphey was gonna be up her ass about this for the rest of her natural time on the job she tipped the bag upside down so that everything fell out. Dark hair, huge clumps of it came out with panties and a bra and pencils and normal twelve-year-old things.

"What the hell?" Nick said bending down to stare at what was in front of them but Amanda's eyes were drawn to the folder. It was a normal school folder but it wasn't like the ones that you would see a child take, more like a high schooler, an advanced high schooler at that.

She flipped open the lid of the folder and a cell phone hit her knees. Nick followed her gaze to the name on the top of the first marked assignment and let out some of the most colourful Spanish phrases that she had ever heard in her life. Fin swore too but Amanda couldn't help but turn her head in order to try so desperately to not puke all over the evidence.

Because the file belonged to Avri Barba, the hair…the underwear…oh god…it must have… _oh god_ …

Murphy took that moment to come crashing up the stairs to see three detectives who had not so long ago been hailed as some of New York's finest looking like the world had just been pulled out of them and Amanda Rollins took that moment to take what little faith that she had and thank God that she wasn't the one that had to tell Rafael Barba that his daughter had just been taken and God only knows what else, by the most dangerous psychopath that she had ever come across in her career.

* * *

 **And hopefully there will be an update soon after this one **


	8. A Dance With Death

**Hi, so here is the second part of this arc-i know i left you all with a cliffhanger in the last chapter so i give you this as well as that.**

 **I know that there is much of Rafael's point of view in this one but he will take a main part in the next chapter so please keep that in mind.**

 **Also i did struggle with Liv's point of view in this episode as well as Lewis because they are both played so fantastically even now this episode sends shivers up my spine.**

 **Disclaimer-Nothing is mine,**

 **Please Read and Review**

 **Also this arc will continue for most of Season 16 at least for Avri so everything will be addressed in later chapters. Well most things will be.**

 **There might be some trigger warnings in this chapter for language, violence and some sexual assault so please keep that in mind.**

 **And i wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy 2018 and a very safe one at that.**

 **And i will try and update as soon as i can**

* * *

Prosecutor's Daughter

Chapter 8-A Dance With Death

* * *

Liv had wanted to tell Rafael herself but Murphy had already done it. There was a moment where Liv wanted to argue with him but surprisingly Amanda had backed their temporary boss.

"He's going to tell Barba the worst news humanly possible" she said to Liv when she had commented on this. "You don't need to do it. He won't want you there when he's told that Lewis…" she visibly struggled to finish the sentence and Liv understood what Amanda was saying but she couldn't help but feel responsible. It was a mixture of guilt and grief and fear. It had been bad enough when Lewis had had Amelia but now he had Avri and while Amelia might be a bit younger than Lewis's preferred taste but Avri was smack bang in the middle of his target zone and more to the point he had a grudge against Barba for putting him away.

And she had lied. All of this was because she had lied.

And now Rafael who she liked very much despite their differences was going to go through hell and there was nothing that she could do about it because there was now two officers on her back that wouldn't let her handle things her own way.

"What are the odds that she's not been raped by now?" she asked Amanda.

Amanda shrugged her mouth twisting. "He wants to get at you" she said finally. "That might be the only thing that stops him"

But they were hollow words and they both knew it.

Liv was more than ashamed to admit that she hid from Rafael when Murphy brought him in. she didn't want to see him, see the look on his face and admit that what had brought them to this place was of her own doing. Realistically she knew the entire squad had known and more than endorsed her lying on the stand but she had been the one to make that decision and two innocent girls were paying the price.

She couldn't let that happen.

She wouldn't let that happen.

She was going to finish this fight on her own terms.

Oliva Benson was going to meet the devil.

She just had to get past those twits on her detail first. But then again, she had more than seventeen years on the job and fifteen of them in SVU. This shouldn't be too hard.

* * *

To say that Rafael was in a state of shock was an understatement. Amaro kept talking to him but he wasn't sure if anything was going in. In fact looking back on those hours when Liv slipped her detail after confessing and being confronted with his daughter hair and her underwear he honestly couldn't say even years later that he remembered that much.

It wasn't something you could put into words the agony that he had felt.

 _Avri_. He had just got her back. He knew Lewis, he knew his MO. Realistically he wasn't holding out much hope that Avri was alive and that was a pain he had never experienced. The father in him wanted to believe that she was alive and the prosecutor in him knew that she probably wasn't.

He did remember speaking once to Nick though. The man who also had a daughter had gotten him a coffee loaded with sugar for the shock and had forced him to drink it.

"I want to see her" he said finally once it felt like he could form words. "When…when you find her…I don't care what she…I want to see her"

Nick looked at him with so much pity in his gaze it made his stomach turn again and he nearly threw up the coffee in his stomach. They were interrupted by Murphy telling them Liv had slipped her detail and that they were tracking her.

"I want to be there" he said finally. "When you…if you…I want to be there"

He wasn't sure Murphy heard him but he knew Nick did and the tight nod the other man gave was enough for him.

And then he detached and went back to his mind-numbing state of agony.

* * *

When Avri woke up she realised three things. One, she was not alone. Two, she was chained standing on her bare feet with her arms tied above her head and Three, she was missing her underwear.

She forced herself to breath once through the throbbing in her head. There was dried blood but it was dried and…and she…

Her hair was gone.

It had been cut she realised to the top of her spine, Lewis had also done something to her knee because her left leg was in fucking agony but her hair was gone…

Her hair…

There was a sniffing next to her and she turned to see a girl in the pink parka again. She stared at Avri for a second and then burst into tears.

"I'm sorry" she wailed. "I'm sorry but he made me"

Avri tried to smile but ended up spitting a mouthful of blood out. It hit her bare feet.

Fuck.

"It's ok" she muttered. It really wasn't and she was in no fit state to be polite but there was an small child crying next to her and Avri didn't need to deal with that on top of what she was sure was coming next.

"What's your name?" she asked.

"Amelia."

"I'm Avri, Amelia…now I need to ask you a question…" she closed her eyes and mentally prepared for what was coming. For what she was going to ask and she found herself praying that she could meet the answer with some dignity even though she didn't put much hope on it.

"I need you to tell me did he…did he touch me?"

She couldn't feel any pain around…that area…and being a virgin she thought she would probably know but she couldn't tell. Her panties were gone so god only knew what that meant.

The girl Amelia turned to look at her.

"Do you mean did he rape you?" she asked and her tone was so sad that Avri cracked open one eye to stare at her.

"Yes" she said flatly. They were in this together so there really was no point in lying especially if they were both going to die.

The girl…Amelia shook her head. "I think he raped my sister" she said finally her eyes welling with tears, "And my Mom, but I don't think he raped you."

Avri closed her eyes fighting back tears. She manged a small smile but she honestly couldn't do much more than that she turned her face to her arm so she would have some semblance of privacy and she wiped her eyes as best she could.

Fuck.

Ok Barba, she told herself sternly, breathe.

She turned back to Amelia just as footsteps were heard coming up into the abandoned warehouse. Avri tested what was tying her to the beam of wood. It was rope but there was no way in hell she could undo it she could see from there, Lewis had kicked her knee in his was sure so that meant running was out of the question and even so she had no idea where she was or how to get away.

William Lewis almost sauntered up the stairs, he still had the scars that Liv had given him and Avri tried to straighten herself up because like hell was she going to show that she was afraid… _so terribly afraid_ …of this man. He tapped the gun he was holding on the table and dropped the phone on it as well. Avri forced herself to watch him her whole body trembling and not she realised and knew-in pain.

"Well Avri Barba, you know when I saw you at that trial I thought with the exception of Detective Benson…I apologise Seargent Benson I might have just seen the prettiest girl in the world. I apologise about your hair, that was to send a sharp message, a clear message that I will not be ignored and…pretty girls sometimes need to know that their not pretty, your hair felt wonderful when I ran my fingers through it"

Amelia let out a sob, Avri gritted her teeth.

"You fucking bastard" she said and then with a bravado she did not all together feel confident in she spat at his feet. It was more blood than spit and she could feel her head wound from where he had pistol whipped her before leak out more blood from the cut.

Lewis looked down at the spit on the floor back at her and then smiled.

She was not all together unprepared for the blow across her face with the back of the gun but she was not prepared for how much it hurt. It hit her cheek and her nose and she could feel more blood on her face.

Amelia sobbed again and Avri turned again blood drippling out from the cut on her lip. If this was a battle of wills, then she was pretty sure that she couldn't win. She forced herself to look at Lewis again but he was moving behind her that slow smile of pure evil on his face and Avri just knew what was going to happen next.

His hands found her hips and one dropped to her backside. She bit back a sob blinking hard.

"Amelia" she said as Lewis's hands moved up her stomach. "Look away now"

She didn't know if the girl had done what was asked but she didn't really care, she was about _to be raped._

It was a sobering thought to say the least, here she was all on her own and she had to be brave because the only person with her was younger than her and wasn't going to protect her. It didn't matter that she wanted her Dad more than humanly possible right now, all that mattered was that she was alone and scared and _about to be raped._

One hand found it's way to her breast and the other one forcing her head back and Avri bit her lip so hard it drew even more blood. But it managed to ground her long enough for her to steal her nerves, if this was going to happen then she wasn't going to beg, or react or move at all, she couldn't fight but she could try and save as much as her dignity as possible.

So she locked all her muscles down and closed her eyes.

But then…Lewis stopped, he pulled back and suddenly Avri understood, he wanted the fight…he was aroused by the fight, he wasn't aroused by her when she was refusing to give him what he wanted. She could almost laugh only it would ruin the only thing keeping her alive right now.

The phone chimed on the desk and Lewis walked over to answer it grinned and then disappeared down the stairs. Avri waited until she couldn't hear him and then she started sobbing in earnest. She couldn't help herself, she had been trying to hold back all her feelings and she couldn't do it anymore, she wanted her Dad here.

"Avri?"

It was Amelia. With an effort that she didn't understand how she still had she turned around to face her wiping her eyes again on her bare arm and turning to see the younger girl, tears streaking down her face and her lower lip trembling watching her.

"I'm…" she was gonna say ok, but she supposed this girl was twelve not two and there was no point in lying to her at this point. Instead she gave a little shrug.

"I want my Dad" the little girl said her eyes filling with tears again.

Avri closed her eyes again and then opened them, willing herself not to start sobbing again.

"Yeah sweetheart" she said finally tears falling down her face.

"I want mine too"

* * *

Lewis was gone for maybe forty minutes give or take and then when he came back he was not alone.

He had Olivia.

* * *

Oliva was shaking, it was a combination of anger and fear and it was so potent she doubted even Elliot, even in his worst moments had ever felt this.

God she missed him, he had been gone for years but she missed him still. Nick was a good cop and a dear friend and she trusted him with her life but Elliot had been so much more, he had known her as she had known him and that relationship was not easily overturned even though they had both known that he had needed to go.

But somehow she wanted him here, she wanted her old team, Munch, Cragen, Fin, Cassidy, Alex, Casey, Elliot, the people she had known for so long that they were in part a part of themselves. Elliot would have killed Lewis all those months ago and this wouldn't have happened. She trusted her new team with her life and she didn't doubt that they would find her but right here and now facing her own mortality she did wish she had, had a chance to call the man who had stood by her for twelve years and had a chance to put things right between them.

But she supposed that Lewis would have probably ended up taking one of Ell's daughters had he stuck around and the thought of Lizzie or Maureen or Kathleen here didn't help her either.

She was more than relieved to see them both alive. Amelia was shaking like a leaf and was crying and Avri was…well Avri looked like hell.

Her hair had been roughly cut to the top of her shoulders and she was trembling, her face looked as if it had been met with the back end of a pistol more than once and her leg looked…wrong in some way.

Avri met her eyes with her own and even as Lewis tied her to the table and then proceeded to rub his hands all over her Liv kept eye contact with Avri, it was easier than looking at nothing or at Amelia. Avri at least knew intimately that this was going to end more than likely with them all dead.

Liv only tore her eyes away from Avri when she saw the gun. She could tell however the younger girl was in trouble, her leg was slowly sliding on the floor dragging behind her in pain and Liv wasn't sure if she was going to be able to stand on it without help, she knew that soon her team would come and get them and a part of her long dormant almost cried in relief when she heard that they were on their way.

And then Lewis proposed Russian Roulette.

Avri and Amelia had been mostly silent during the battle of wills, the dance with death that Lewis and Oliva had been playing for longer than they both ever anticipated (of that she was sure) but now Amelia couldn't help but start sobbing again and Avri's face seemed to just crumple. Liv forced herself to breathe. This was going to end with one of them dead and she honestly couldn't say which one it would be, but if she died and her team did not get here in time then he would either rape or shoot Avri and Amelia depending on how much time he had.

And then the father that had lost his wife and had to deal with his one traumatised daughter would lose his other one and Rafael would lose Avri.

Lewis pointed his own gun at Amelia.

"Look away" she said her voice trembling. "Look away Amelia" Amelia did so turning instantly.

"Avri" she said keeping her eyes on Lewis. Avri shook her head but didn't speak. Liv wanted to scream her frustration at the girl but couldn't help but feel oddly touched that she wanted to even now in their predicament offer Liv some form of misplaced comfort.

"Avri turn around!" she yelled and Avri broke down sobbing again. She didn't around but she did bury her face in her arm and her hair mostly gave her some protection so Liv raised the gun and shot.

Blank.

Blank.

Amelia thankfully was still not looking but despite the fact that her hands were like led Avri was still staring at her with wide eyes, the tears had gone now and she looked like a woman defeated even though Liv knew she was anything but, Barba's daughter it seemed didn't have a bone of self-preservation in her body.

Lewis had noticed this two and he pointed his own gun directly at Avri. She didn't so much as flinch her eyes were still on Liv who shook her head.

"Pull the trigger Detective Benson or so help me I will put a bullet in the prosecutor's daughters head right here and now"

"Turn away" she mouthed and Avri ducked her gaze back to the floor.

Blank.

Blank.

They were coming now Liv was sure of it.

And here she was it seemed moments later holding the gun with the one bullet left.

God she hoped they could forgive her but right now it seemed like a good option.

Lewis however took the gun and this time Avri didn't look at her, she had buried her head in her arms and her whole body was convulsing with pain and her emotions, Amelia was crying loudly her back to them thank God.

And then…

Then it was over.

One bang, something hit her face, Amelia screamed, Avri screamed and Lewis was dead on the floor.

 _Lewis was dead on the floor._

 _Lewis was dead._

 _Lewis was dead._

 _She was alive._

 _Avri and Amelia were alive._

She was now shuddering violently with emotions and she couldn't speak. Amelia still had her head turned but Avri was looking at her wide eyed, her face bloody and coated in tears. There was a moment when the two of them stared at each other, both of them locked in their own hell.

It was over.

But it wasn't over, Liv knew that and she knew Avri knew that, she could hear her team coming up the stairs and she turned her head back trying to make sense of what had happened in the past ten seconds.

It was over.

But it wasn't over.

It was just the beginning.

* * *

 **I have probably said it before but i will say it again this story will end when we hit the end of Season 17 so keep that in mind**

 **Please Read and Review and i will see you in the New Year with an update as soon as i can **


	9. After The Storm

**Hi, so here is another chapter, this one deals with the aftermath of the previous one and sets up a long arc for the next five or six chapters. I might have taken some liberties with procedure but most of this i think is accurate.**

 **Disclaimer-Nothing is mine.**

 **Please Read and Review.**

* * *

Prosecutor's Daughter

Chapter 9-After The Storm

* * *

It had been Amaro surprisingly enough that had come hurtling through the door that was Liv's office to tell Rafael that they had lead that he better get a move on that he better take the vest being offered him and _put it on._

Either Murphy had agreed to him coming or Rollins had all but threatened him but either way the man didn't seem to worry that there was a DA with them who had never so much as held a gun never mind fired one before. Not that looking back he could remember this at all. In fact looking back he was surprised he was able to put one foot in front of the other. His whole head had become a cloud of white noise and he barely remembered Amaro parking the car in front of what looked like a cluster of abandoned buildings before the younger man opened the door and stared at him with a hard expression.

"Look I don't wanna be rude Barba, god knows what I'd be like if I was in your shoes but right now we are walking into God only knows what and I don't have time for you to fall apart on me. If you're coming then I need you awake and alert. This is my career on the line and also my life so please…"

And somehow that was enough to pull him out of his fog.

And that was the point where he began to start remembering things.

He forced himself to keep moving up the stairs, behind Nick. There was something going on in the radio's with Liv and Lewis and to be honest Rafael was kinda ashamed of himself because he didn't really pay much attention to the fact because it was clear that Avri wasn't being made to take part. Of course that could just as easily mean his little girl was dead but the second he started thinking like that his head started spinning and he had to cast his thoughts away from it because otherwise he might end up killing himself as well as Amaro.

The gunshot happened just as Murphy gave the order to crash through the door. He had to shove himself past Nick and Fin who had both ran to Liv's side. Her face was vacant almost, spattered gruesomely in blood and even though he desperately wanted to shake her, to ask her where his daughter was he knew it would do no good because Liv was not in a state to answer any kind of questions.

Amanda was helping a little girl down from the ropes binding her and it was when she moved that he finally saw her.

 _Avri_

Oh holy hell Avri.

She had the same shocked look on her face that Liv had. He took her in desperate to see if she had any injuries but aside from a head wound and the way her knee was twisted she seemed to be ok. Well, physically anyway. Fin was cutting her down and then she was loose and she staggered forwards as if looking for somewhere to go and she half fell into his arms.

"Hey baby" he said into the now short hair. It still smelled the same of that herbal green tea crap that was like six dollars a bottle and he almost laughed even though there was nothing funny about this situation whatsoever. Avri stumbled a little bit more-clearly her leg was injured and Rafael tightened his grip on her waist so that she was half falling into him.

"It's ok" he said again as he helped her down the stairs, down another set of stairs and out the building. She flinched as she came into contact with sunlight for what must be the first time in at least a day but still she didn't say anything. He all but placed her in the car and then Fin was getting in the front seat with a rather apologetic look on his face and Rafael was leaning against it desperately trying to not throw up to cap it all off.

He was seriously thinking of apologising to anyone who he had told to be calm when in this situation. Because when your kid went missing…it really was the worst feeling in the world, there were no words to describe that kind of feeling. That kind of _agony_.

There was someone stood behind him and he turned to see Murphy stood behind him. Rafael didn't know what he looked like but he suspected that it must be bad to elicit this response from the man.

"She's gonna need to be checked out at the hospital. She's…err…she's gonna need a rape kit Barba so…also she's…don't let her touch her face or anything, all of it, the blood the bruising, the skin under her nails, all of it's evidence, forensics is at the hospital now but they gotta do some pictures before the Doctors can look at her…I'm sorry Barba really I am but…when IA get there she's gonna need to be ready for an interview as well"

Rafael stared at him for a second. He knew all of this, this was normal, as a prosecutor he knew how this worked but he supposed it was very different to seeing someone you loved go through this. He supposed that was why they usually separated the loved ones from the victim (and fuck he supposed that made his little girl a victim now) while they did the processing of the evidence.

Throat to tight to speak however he nodded, turned around the car and slid into the other seat. He could deal with his own emotions later. Right now he had a daughter to support and he would do that the only way he could. There was a pause where he tried to regain control of himself because breaking apart was mostly undignified and also he knew that Avri was close to a breakdown herself.

She still hadn't said anything, she was sitting in the car, her face glazed with shock and her eyes still wide and blank. Gone was the spark inside the brown and even her hair had seemed to lose it's shine. Lewis had cut it roughly so it was just touching her shoulders but she was still alive and he prayed to a god that long ago he had stopped believing in-that she would remain that way.

Forcing himself to look…really look at his daughter he saw that she had turned her head to him. It was the first movement she had made since he had managed to find her. The look of confusion on her face was too painful to put into words.

"Dad" she said very quietly. She seemed almost surprised to see him there.

"Yeah baby it's me" he said finally.

Avri looked around the car and then back at her own bloody hands.

"Is he dead?" she asked finally.

"Yeah" he said and then he threw caution to the wind and wrapped one arm around her shoulders which were cold. "Yeah Avri he's dead"

"Oh" it was a tiny little word and then Avri didn't say anything until they got to the hospital.

They wouldn't let him in while they took the pictures and while they checked to see if Lewis had…

He didn't want to think about what he would do if Lewis had…

Instead he decided to focus on breathing…breathing was good.

And he was still stood outside the door when he was allowed to go in some time later.

Well, until he heard Avri call for him later.

* * *

It had taken a long time for Avri to acknowledge her surroundings. She chalked that up to both the drugs that they had given her since she had set one foot inside the damn place and then again the shock that seemed to be vibrating throughout her whole body. There was a pause where she stood there and tried to think about what had just happened but whenever she did that either her knee, the throbbing in her head or a flash from the camera snapped her out of it.

The woman taking the pictures of her fingernails, of her bruised face and of the injury to her knee smiled at her once or twice but didn't say much. Perhaps she believed it would be kinder that way. Weather that was the case or not Avri didn't care. The nurse didn't speak to her either but instructed her to change out of her ruined jeans into a hospital gown. She made it seemed no allowances for privacy either but at this point Avri figured through the cloud of fog in her mind that dignity and privacy had both been shot to shit.

She considered just what she was going to do next when the nurse decided to speak.

"Ok so now I'm going to do a rape kit, so I'm going to need you to lie back and spread your legs for me"

Like hell. Avri knew that she hadn't been raped, she had come bloody close but she hadn't and she would be damned if someone was going to make her feel even more violated than she felt already. Lewis was dead, there was no trial to prepare for and she didn't think she could stand another person touching her that she didn't know or trust.

The nurse smiled at her in a way that she supposed was trying to be sympathetic but only made Avri want to smack that stupid smile straight off her face.

"I'm afraid it's procedure. Your whole body is evidence"

"He didn't rape me" she said flatly. "And I refuse a kit so you can take that swab and shove it. Dad!" it was a weak cry of that she knew but she was sure the other man would hear her and she was more than sure that he would come through the door if she shouted loud enough. There was a split second before the door opened drowning out the nurses cry that he couldn't be here and it was NYPD policy. He took one look between the two of them and seemed to understand.

"Out" he shouted pointing a finger at the door. The nurse spluttered but apparently she could sense a losing battle when it was placed in front of her and therefore she disappeared through the door probably to go warn someone that the girl they had rescued wouldn't do what the NYPD wanted. Avri couldn't give a shit to be honest. Well she didn't give a shit about much right now anyhow.

Her Dad crossed the room and Avri felt the words suddenly tumble out of her as if the last barrier she had to them fell apart.

"I wasn't raped. He didn't…I wasn't"

Her Dad stared at her for a long time and then when he spoke it was with a slightly incredulous tone.

"Are you sure, Avri…I don't want you to lie to me because you think I cannot hack it. If he did then I promise you I will help you deal with it but…"

"I'm not lying Dad" she said feeling suddenly very tired. "He didn't touch me…"

Well that was a lie but she figured she could deal with that when it came out in the open.

Her Dad stared at her for a long moment and then he was like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

"Oh thank god" he said coming around the bed and hugging her. Her arms wouldn't work right but she did want to hug him back…very much. Eventually her Dad pulled back and she managed a small smile that was ruined by her eyes filling with tears that she couldn't control. She could feel a small sob building and she suspected that it would be the first of many.

"Oh darling" her Dad said finally. "I know…it's gonna be ok I promise"

She wondered if he really believed that.

Instead she closed her eyes and lay back on the bed trying to pretend (and probably failing all things considered) that she still couldn't see the smirk on Lewis's face behind her eyelids.

* * *

The last couple of weeks were…trying to say the least.

It wasn't that Avri was showing emotion, he had been expecting that, if she'd have woken up in the night screaming he would have been prepared for that, it was that most of the time she wasn't sleeping period. He had taken a few weeks personal leave and his mother had stopped by more than once because at some point he had to leave the apartment and Avri wasn't setting foot outside the door.

It was that his daughter wasn't saying anything at least more than the one syllable that got him to pass her something. Her hair was still uneven and the only thing different was that Avri was locking herself away in the shower until he would force her to come out her skin red and sore from the scrubbing. Most of the time he would get up at one or two in the morning and still find her up staring blankly at whatever shit was on the TV and even when she did lie down in bed he was willing to bet all his money in the bank that she wasn't sleeping.

And the problem was that she wasn't talking to him and he had no idea of how to talk to her.

His mother had tried as well but nothing was sinking in and while he knew soon enough that they would both have to resume normal lives it wasn't a good sign when the DA called him to tell him to take the conversation in a different room and then drop the bomb on him the Brooklyn DA was calling a grand jury investigation into Liv's actions into the shooting of William Lewis.

He told Avri this expecting sort of reaction, fear, anger, at this point he would take anything.

Instead all he got was a raised eyebrow and with that Barba went to the peace of his room and wondered if it was wrong to call Buchanan and beg him for his help in case they ended up indicting Avri for conspiracy or something. Which considering the Brooklyn DA and the last time that they had had a run in wasn't beyond any possibility.

Avri just tied her hair back the day of the jury investigation. She dressed in one of her dresses with a little collar but it was a different pair of boots than the ones she usually wore which were probably still in evidence.

If Rafael hadn't been so desperate for her to talk to him about what was going on in her head then he would have been very proud. It was the first time she had been out in weeks and she was pale and looked so impossibly young without her make up.

The ADA met them at the door.

"I won't be long Miss Barba I promise" was all he said and then they were gone and Rafael had had barely enough chance to level a glare at the fucker for putting Avri in this situation.

He didn't know what had transpired between them in that room, or what had happened with Liv or Murphy but they had decided not to charge her. Avri had been staring at the wall when he told her this and Rafael was just about to wonder how the hell he was gonna get her to eat something when she spoke again this time for the first time all day.

"Dad, can you book me an appointment with someone to do my hair? I wanna get it fixed…can you come with me?"

It was thing she had said since she had been taken captive, it was the longest sentence she had had and Rafael didn't know if that meant things were going back to normal, if Avri could weather out this storm or not or if they even could but it was with a genuine smile that he picked up the phone and he looked up he would have seen something resembling a smile on her face also.

* * *

 **And let me know what you think, with any luck the next chapter will be here a lot faster than this one. **


	10. The Longest Nights

**Hi, so here is the latest chapter, i apologise for the delay but i had a nightmare of a time with an essay and that had to take priority. But here is the latest chapter anyway.**

 **As Barba has now exited the show (though why i will never know) i have decided to end this story with Series 17 and while there will be no main pairing to this story the chapters will lead more towards a relationship than the show ever did and i think you all know what pairing i mean.**

 **Disclaimer-Nothing is mine.**

 **And Please let me know what you think.**

* * *

Prosecutor's Daughter

Chapter 10-The Longest Nights

* * *

Time came though when Rafael had to go back to work. Avri had been given an extended absence from school as long as someone emailed her the work. She had taken to slowly getting back to her schoolwork but there were times when Rafael would look up from his own work to see her staring at her computer screens, but her eyes were not focused on the screen. She seemed to be locked in a dark place for a second and then she would pull herself out of it and then she was trying to come back to herself and pretend that everything was normal even though everything was clearly not.

But more to the point he couldn't think of how he could bring it up without her getting that look in her eyes, that sad but yet warning look that so much told him that she was not in the mood to talk-it was oddly enough the same thing his ex-wife had done whenever she decided not to talk to him-she would have shot him that look over her books and it was the only one that he ever paid attention to. Avri had copied that look to the letter and was using it whenever he tried to talk or to suggest that she speak to someone.

He had thought about asking Liv to talk to her but Liv since she had adopted her son-and yeah, that had come out of nowhere and had gained no reaction from Avri other than a blank stare. But she was getting better bit by bit in some areas. Rafael had noticed with a sort of desperation that she was eating. For the first few weeks she had not touched her food only picking it with her fork and eating one or two small bites. But then the morning after she had finally gotten her now short hair restyled she had taken a long shower, scrubbed her skin red and then thrown her pyjama's in the wash basket and finally changed into her jeans.

The doctors had told Rafael that his daughters knee had been internally bruised and had been very close to being knocked out of shape. Avri was still stiff on her leg even a month or so later and even though she had started going back to school she came home straight afterwards and didn't say a word.

The problem with single parenting though was that you didn't have anyone to talk to about this. Amaro was facing divorce, a custody debate and a demotion after he had faced a considerable amount of prison time for something that he was sure he had done and that Amanda had covered up and for that reason he didn't ask her-besides she was busy with showing some new detective around and from the way she rolled her eyes whenever he was mentioned it meant that he was either terrible or rather good looking depending on how you viewed it.

He had tried showing Avri a load of baby Noah Porter-Benson pictures that Fin had sent him but his daughter didn't so much as look at them. In fact as far as Liv was concerned she was blatantly not talking about her or listening to any of his stories about her either staring into space or down at her hands as if it was the only way that she could keep her control.

Either way he had to go back to work. And that meant he had to leave his daughter to go about her world in the hope that she would come and talk to him despite the fact that he had no experience of dealing with this sought of trauma.

The first case he had to deal with was the one where he had to put away a human trafficker and that felt very, very good. It was the man that had threatened and then almost shot at Liv's new adopted son but the shine he had managed to acquire had quickly gone to shit as soon as he had come home to his daughter staring blankly at the wall as if it held the answers.

"Avri" he said finally, and his daughter slowly turned to him her face showing her exhaustion. There was a second where they staring at each other. And then Rafael forced himself to speak the words that he was pretty sure would end him.

"Do you want me to call your mother? Do you want to go and live with her for a time? In London?"

Avri did stare at him then her expression showing a combination of shock and hurt and usually Rafael would have hated himself for that expression however this was the first sign of genuine emotion she had shown since she went back to school and he was talking what he could get.

"What good would that do?" she asked finally. "She's not exactly cared so far has she? I was kidnapped and almost…" she cut herself off abruptly and then shook her head.

"Somehow I think she's made her opinion clear when she said she had to work rather than come and see me. You don't know what it was like Dad, trust me despite your many faults, you are the better parent"

But then as soon as the emotions were on her face they were clean off them and even through the entire week after that was taken up by battling a racist old man and also dealing with another old man praying on young teen actresses he still couldn't take his mind over the fact that there was a teenager right now in his house that was pretending that everything was alright and he didn't have a clue how to deal with it.

"I mean" he said to Liv one night when she turned up at his office and asked how Avri was and he was regrettably unable to keep the flow of information to himself.

"It's difficult it's like she's pretending and I don't know how to not pretend" he took a big gulp of whiskey "Truth is Liv I don't know how much of it I want to hear"

Liv nodded. There had been an official report of course, there always was with this kind of thing but the fact of the matter was that he wasn't sure how much that counted. Avri had given a statement as had Liv as had Amelia but a combination of Avri trying to protect the little girl and then Liv trying to protect his daughter had made things very difficult for him to understand what was going on.

"You want me to try and talk to her?" Liv asked. Rafael paused. He had a feeling that was the last thing Avri wanted and he wasn't sure he wanted to spring anything on her without telling her. Truth was he was so out of his depth with this that he didn't know what was right and what wasn't.

"No" he said finally. "I'll ask her again but…I don't know"

Liv nodded didn't say anything else and then turned the topic of discussion back to the case.

* * *

She shouldn't have gone.

A day later her hands still shook when she thought of it. She shouldn't have gone, she should have trusted Rafael by his word and she should have left it alone but she hadn't.

She had gone to see Avri.

She didn't know weather or not the girl was going to be home and she wasn't responding to any text messages that Liv was sending her way. Instead Liv had decided to go and speak to Avri as she was coming out of her school.

It was the first time she had seen her since the trial. Hell it had been the first time she had seen Avri since she had become a parent herself and she found herself shocked by the other woman's appearance. Avri's hair which she remembered being cut was now styled to her shoulders in soft waves. Her black jeans and black jumper hung loosely on her-she had clearly lost weight. Her boots were caked in mud and she looked utterly defeated.

"Avri" she called out and the girl started like a shot had gone of near her and then her eyes focused on Liv. For a second she looked exhausted, it showed through her perfect mask that for a second reminded Liv painfully of Elliot whenever the job got too much for him and in order to stay focused and he had been forced to lock away his personal feelings. Of course she thought quietly. That had not done him much good in the end.

"Hi". Avri didn't say anything. Liv nodded. Somehow she had been expecting this to start this way. Avri just looked at her with those inscrutable dark eyes of hers for a long second and then turned away as if looking at Liv was like looking at Lewis and therefore enough to set the girls teeth on edge.

"I wanted too..." Oh hell what was it about this girl that made her stutter whenever she saw her? This was at least twice now where Avri Barba had flashed her that strange look again and now Liv got the impression there was something the other girl wanted to say.

"I have a little boy now and I would love you to meet him" she offered. Avri shook her head.

"He doesn't want to meet me. Now is Dad ok?"

"Yeah…I'm not here about that" she said trying to get over the dead tone in Avri's voice.

"He's worried about you. He doesn't know I'm here but…it's keeping him up at night and…and I want you to know that…I get it I really do so if you wanna talk…"

"What should I talk about Liv?" Avri interrupted sounding too tired for a girl of her age. "The part where I woke up with my hair gone, the part where Amelia begged me to forgive her? The part where I had to ask a twelve year old if she had seen me be raped as I tried to figure out what should hurt and what shouldn't? Or the part where Lewis would have raped me if your text message hadn't come through"

She shook her head, it was the most that she had said in weeks at least to Liv's knowledge.

"I don't want to talk about it Liv, not to Dad, not yet anyway and certainly not to you"

And if Liv had been the kind of detective, the kind of woman, the kind of mother to have allowed the conversation to stop right there she would have done.

But she wasn't and she didn't. and looking back her fatal mistake was thinking that Avri Barba was like all the other victims she had come across, to some degree they were. She should have remembered from years of hard learning that you never press a victim to talk to you if it became clear they didn't want to.

"Avri whatever happened I want you to know it wasn't your fault, you shouldn't blame yourself"

Avri did turn and look at her then and it was with an expression of such incredulity that for a moment the two women just stood there staring at each other.

"I don't blame myself" she said finally. She looked around as if this conversation was bothering her but looking back it was more than likely she was looking for a cab. However, when she turned back to look at Liv her jaw was set and she looked more alive than she had done so in weeks.

"I blame you" she said clearly.

Liv blinked shocked to her very core. She had heard a lot of reasons for Avri's behaviour from Rafael but he had never hinted for a second that she herself had been the problem. All of this happened in a millisecond and then Avri was moving to the cab that she had pulled over without Liv even noticing.

"All of this" Avri said the door half open. "Happened because of you, you taunted him, you beat him senseless, Dad lied for you, let you get away with the entire thing and then I was the one that was almost raped. All of it involves you so I don't want to talk to you, I don't want to see you and I don't want to have to see living proof of how your life is wonderful right now while mine is going down the fucking river. I want to deal with this in my own fucking way so please leave me the fuck alone"

And with that she shuts the door to the cab and it drives off leaving Liv on the sidewalk feeling a little bit like her heart was breaking for reasons she didn't want to think about.

Her and Rafael were just friends. There was no need for her to feel this way about Rafael's daughter, like she would have done if it was Noah standing there telling her this-like her heart was breaking.

She had to give Avri some credit thought she thought much later after she had put Noah to bed and then cried for a while over a glass of wine. Liv had been a cop for nearly twenty years had worked sixteen of them in SVU almost and had been exposed to the truly worst of humanity but Avri…

She had to say, Avri had left her for once stunned into silence.

* * *

 **And just to say Avri is confused and suffering alone in silence at the minute but don't worry the next few chapters will resolve some of these issues. And she will talk about it...eventually.**

 **And hopefully i will update in a few days. **


	11. Enough Is Enough

**Hi, so here is another chapter, i apologise for the lateness of posting but my uni workload has increased and therefore my work has been put on the backburner. **

**Disclaimer-Nothing is mine.**

 **Please Read and Review.**

 **I want to just state here that it is only Avri's point of view what was going with Lewis and her own issues surrounding what nearly happened to her that influences her decisions. It is not that she is condoning what happened to Evie in the episode Pornstar Requiem which i have tried to stress many times. It's just in dealing with her own issues she is less sympathetic to the victim and what she did for a living prior to her assault-But that point of view is just for this chapter-next chapter will see Avri finally confront her issues. **

**And let me know what you think**

* * *

Prosecutor's Daughter

Chapter 11-Enough is Enough

* * *

It wasn't a conscious decision to do it. Avri had woken up that morning had tied her short hair back and dressed in her black jeans and black jumper with lace at the bottom and had decided that she was going to do this. She was going to get up, get out of the apartment and go and see her Dad at work.

She hadn't been out at the weekends since…well…since her haircut. She had to admit while the situation around the cut had been…horrific to say the least she was rather pleased by the way it had turned out. Considering her face was still a mass of bruises the hairstylist (and her Dad had spared no expense) didn't comment but instead layered her hair so it fell to the middle of her neck in neat layers that could be easily straightened or curled depending on how she wanted to style it. The bruising had gone down and most people didn't know what had happened so a good foundation had made sure the school didn't know. There was just the insomnia and the crippling panic and she was trying to deal with it in the only way she knew how, by pretending it didn't exist.

If she could make it to her Dad's work without feeling like she was going to be snatched off the streets without a second's warning then she supposed that she was improving. School was manageable because there was nothing else it could be, there was no escape or excuse and books…learning…when things with her Mom had been bad that had been her refuge, it wasn't so hard to find it again.

But ever since her confrontation with Olivia she found she could grit her teeth and do more. Her leg was still throbbing especially as it became colder but she found that she could get dressed and one time at breakfast she asked her father for the paper only to be rewarded with a somewhat relieved smile.

The thing was she wasn't sure what he knew. She was willing to bet a lot on Olivia not telling him that she blamed her for the events that had happened because Avri was pretty sure if that was the case then she would have heard about it by now and she absolutely had not told him about what had happened in that cold room. She didn't need to think about it during the day. There were nights when all she could do was think about it, think about it and if she didn't wake up screaming then she woke up in the night feeling to cold for the weather outside and resisting the urge to vomit.

More to the point she wasn't sure what she was going to do once that door was open but she knew, or she reckoned she knew, the second that Olivia Benson thought that she was becoming a victim she was going to tell her Dad and then the conversation would be forced out of her and she wasn't ready for that yet. Especially because she knew that it would stress him out and with another massive trial coming up Avri didn't need a not guilty plea being because her Dad was too distracted with what was going on with her to realise that he was fighting a loosing battle.

Her Dad was in the process of putting a couple of rapists away who had raped a college teen who was moonlighting as a porn star. Now Avri was all for making your own choices and if that was what this girl wanted to do then she was more than welcome to in her book but she found herself for once in her life understanding why the boys had been confused. There was no excuse for rape but she did understand the scepticism around the entire case especially when you actually did watch the videos which considering someone had leaked all of them online-she had…regrettably.

And a part of Avri felt rather snide towards this Evie girl, it was a new emotion and something she wasn't used to feeling but she felt snide towards her-she had almost been raped and when she had looked at that rape porn video she didn't feel compassion she felt disgust. That something that happened to millions of men and women was being trivialised by some college student for money. It made her angry and quite unsympathetic a thing that seemed to be dividing her school. This case had gone viral fast and like most teenagers she was constantly seeing public opinion sway. If she could feel remorse, then she would be surprised that many didn't see Evie Barnes as a victim. But instead she only felt anger and the urge to cry and it was that, that forced her to tie on her boots, step out of her apartment and order a cab to the courtroom offices.

She made it up the steps quietly, she was only limping a little with a phantom ache in her knee when she got to the top. The doctor had said it was twisted and would take time to heal and she believed it. Carmen looked up in surprise as she came in.

"Avri" she said, the woman looked like she wanted to hug her but thought better of it. Avri was relieved because she was already feeling her limbs begin to shake and her face crack with the effort of smiling. She wanted to go home and curl up under her covers but she couldn't. Life had to go on and if Olivia Benson-who in her opinion had caused all this mess-could do it then there was no excuse for Avri to not do it. Ignoring Carmen and once ascertaining that her Dad was alone she pushed open the door.

Her Dad looked up as she came in and though he tried to hide it she could see how shocked he was. She smiled and then he smiled back and was out of his seat so fast she nearly went dizzy.

"Avri" he said and then he hugged her. She stiffened as she usually did these days but once she realised that it was just her Dad hugging her she relaxed. She noticed that she was relaxing more and more as each hug went by and her smile when they pulled apart was for once, completely genuine.

"Well this is a nice surprise" he said moving back and Avri could admit she was. She was at ease already, there was something about her Dad, he'd always had it, some kind of presence that when you were near him he was going to protect you. She sat down as her knee was beginning to give her grief again.

"Hey Dad…I…I got a little stir crazy wanted to see if I could make it…err…I wanted to see if you were ok to grab lunch…I know I should have called first but I wanted to surprise you"

She said all of this alarmingly fast she had to admit.

Her Dad grinned and it was like watching all of the tension in his drain away. "I…have a lot of work to do on this case but If you want I could order in…pizza?"

Avri nodded.

They were both eating more than their fare share of food when the door opened and Olivia Benson came in followed by Amanda Rollins. Rollins stopped on the doorway and then grinned her smile lightening up her whole face. "Avri" she said, she didn't hug Avri for which she was extremely grateful for but she did touch her hand in a nice gesture. "I am so glad to see you…you look…good"

"Thanks" Avri said smiling. There was something about Amanda that put her at ease almost instantly. She didn't look good and she knew it but she felt like it for a change and that was saying something.

"We can come back" Olivia said and Avri wanted to shout that yes she should but the woman hadn't looked at her and she certainly wasn't going to initiate contact.

"No" her Dad said throwing down his slice of pizza. "I was gonna call you Liv, the porn video's are gonna come in, I tried but…at this point I don't think it would have changed anything anyway, all of them are online, no way are we going to get a complete jury that haven't seen any"

Olivia sighed. "Are you backing off because of the heat that your getting from the Mayor's office over Hudson?"

Her Dad shot her a deeply unimpressed look.

"You know me better than that"

"I thought I did"

It was the causal flippant comment that made Avri feel really fucked off. Not just with Olivia but with the whole world. Seriously in the mood she was feeling right now with all the added shit she had to deal with was it too much to wish that her father forget about some fucking porn star and tell the two detectives to fuck off so he could spend some time with his only child? Did nobody get that the only time she felt safe was when her father was awake and in the same room as her?

"Fuck off Olivia"

Her Dad snapped his head around to reprimand her but Olivia was already holding up her hand.

"It's ok Raf"

Raf? Since when the hell was he Raf?

Oh shit, they weren't…they weren't…he wouldn't…oh shit.

"I'm gonna go home" she said suddenly and before either one of them could say anything she was up and already out the door. She was rather pleased to say that she made it to the elevator before she started fighting back tears again in earnest.

* * *

The room was now supremely uncomfortable. Rollins cleared her throat muttered something about calling Amaro to check up on a piece of evidence and then excused herself from the room. She could have left naked dancing around his door for all Rafael cared, his gaze was firmly on Liv.

"What the hell was that about?"

Liv turned to face him her expression carefully blank.

"Have you spoken to Avri about what happened with Lewis?"

Rafael gestured with his hands in a kind of help me gesture.

"Liv she's not talking to me at all. So if you know something then please tell me, because honestly I am at a loss here"

"She blames me"

Weather Olivia had meant to say it or not Rafael couldn't be sure but he leaned back in his chairs suddenly feeling like an idiot. Of course she did didn't she? It had all been there for him to see had it not? Avri didn't want to talk about work, she didn't want to meet Noah, she walked out of the room whenever his phone rang…of course…

That didn't mean it was right of course but now he understood a bit more.

Now what the hell was he going to do about it?

* * *

Her Dad had won the case and then lost the case all in the space of twenty four hours. It would have been heartbreaking even to her if Avri didn't feel like her heart could break anymore. She found that in the nights where she could feel Lewis's hands upon her she had no sympathy for a woman only a couple of years older than her who had been shamed and abused simply because she was shamed and abused on camera. The whole thing was so incredibly fucked up and Avri found that she couldn't dwell on it anymore because she was already going crazy in her own mind right now-what was the point in adding to it?

"You wanna tell me what happened in that room?" Her Dad asked that night.

"No"

"Because I know you blame Liv, she didn't betray your confidence or anything but…I just want to help you Avri"

Avri put down her fork and stared at her plate.

"You don't want to know what happened or what didn't happen in that room"

There was a strange expression that crossed her Dad's face then and Avri who was too busy trying not to imagine Lewis's hand on her backside again didn't notice it. Had she looked up then she would have known that her Dad had understood in that brief minute more than she would have ever given him credit for.

But she didn't.

That was a conversation for another day.

The next day.

* * *

 **And the next chapter will resolve these issues i hope. Please enjoy and let me know what you think and i will try and update as soon as i am able. **


	12. Her Father's Daughter

**Hi so here is another chapter, I am hoping to update again before the exams but I should warn you if not then the next update wont be until after May. That being said it will be a multiple update so you should have a lot of chapters. However I am warning you in advance and to anyone sitting exams like me good luck.**

 **Disclaimer-Nothing Is mine.**

 **There might be some triggers in this chapter so please keep that in mind.**

 **And I will try and update as soon as I can.**

* * *

Prosecutor's Daughter

Chapter 12-Her Father's Daughter

* * *

The entire week Rafael took off. He had a lot of leave to take and the only two cases seemed to involve some children in the woods re-enacting some scary story that could take place in family court and some visiting detectives from Chicago that had according to the DA, disappeared back to their own state once they realised that there New York leads were all dead and that they were returning to clean up the mess that was in their own state or so Rafael had been told. Liv had gone up to help them and therefore as soon as he had confirmation he booked the week that collided with Easter and then decided that he was going to get some answers out of his daughter about what happened in the room with Lewis and that little girl.

He had re-read the entire file that both IA and the Brooklyn DA had managed to compile. It had taken him a bit of begging to get it and it had also taken more than a little time to put together a plan but he came home on Friday and threw his keys onto the table.

"Alright, I wanna know why you blame Olivia Benson for what happened with William Lewis and while were on the subject of that I want you to tell me what happened"

Avri didn't so much as look up from her book.

"Like hell"

"Avri, I mean it I wanna know what happened in that room"

Avri put down her book. "No you don't, and if I blame Olivia Benson for what happened then I do. You weren't there"

"And that's why, I want to know, Olivia wont tell me, in fact all she's told me is that you blame her and then she stormed off. Look…" he leaned over the sofa so they were looking at each other eye to eye.

"I wouldn't be pushing you to answer the question if I didn't think we both needed to know. Avri you are not ok."

"No" Avri said watching him with thinly veiled amusement that seemed to be anything less than funny. "You weren't in that room. She was, she knew what was going to happen when she got on the stand and more to the point you knew that" she levelled him with a long look.

"And so did you. The second that you let her take to the stand and lie through her teeth about the first attack you knew that there was going to be some form of revenge. And so did she…" she stood up then throwing her book to the side and when she spoke it was with a voice that was barely containing her fury and pent up emotion.

"And I don't feel like spending what could be the rest of my very short life by agonising over the little details that happened because you and Olivia Benson and the rest of SVU decided to play fast and loose with the fact that she almost killed him with a metal pipe while he was handcuffed, attempted rape isn't something I really planned to go into with you Dad. Christ it's not like we were ever that close"

And with that she stormed out and into her room slamming the door behind her with such a force the glasses on the counter from where he had done the washing up that morning rattled and nearly fell.

It took him a second to realise what she had said and when it hit him he found himself sinking to the nearest chair his knees to week to keep him standing. He had wanted to hear this, he had wanted her to tell him, had started a row with her because he knew that Avri (kind of like his ex-wife in that regard) worked better when she was annoyed. It was an old prosecutor's habit, goad the person you want the truth from by making them angry but he had been loath to use it here even if it had worked. Time was getting crucial, Avri was not coping, he was not coping with her not coping because his imagination had done wonders and now…well…he had asked to know.

She had almost been raped. He had suspected as much deep down, he had suspected that Lewis might have…assaulted her in some way but neither Avri nor Amelia had given any indication of how much had happened and Rafael had not wished to press a traumatised child when he had, had his own to deal with.

But now he was beginning to wonder if Avri had been lying about the whole thing, she had said almost but what if that wasn't true? He had taken her at face value when she had said that there was no need for her to have a rape kit done and he would have liked to have thought that Avri would have but her health first before everything but what if she had been so in shock that she had decided to deny what had happened? Clearly she had done that in those first few days when she had sat in an insomniac state and he had been left alone in the night wondering what to do. Could she have done it again? Could he have really not known if she had been violated in the worst way possible? He would have known right? He might not have been in her life that long but he would have liked to have thought that she would have come to him regardless.

Eventually he began to realise that she wasn't going to come out of her room that easily. He bit his lip. He would have liked to have thought that he had walked into this knowing what he was doing, turns out that was a lie. He gave up and he realised that he was going to have to order some food eventually even if nobody in this apartment wanted to eat it. Then he was going straight for the scotch.

* * *

Avri had known she was taking a cowards way out hiding in her room, the truth of the matter was she knew that she was never going to be able to sleep without feeling hands on her unless she told someone what had nearly happened. Even if she wasn't ready she knew there was no point pretending that she hadn't let slip what had happened and she also knew that there was no point pretending that she couldn't explain it further. Regardless of what she wanted or felt or needed she knew that she had no choice but to go through with this. And who knew? Perhaps having the issue forced would help?

Even Avri knew she was never going to talk about this on her own.

She opened the door again and then almost shut it outright. The whole thing made her skin crawl, it wasn't right for her to be like this in her own house. This was where she had chosen to be, she could have gone to London and she knew that this would have never happened if she did. But she had chosen to stay here. This was her home now.

And with that Avri stood up on shaky legs and staggered out the door and into the kitchen.

Her Dad was already in the scotch and Avri found that she needed to have something strong in her hand if she was going to tell this story. With that she moved to the mug tree they had and found the wine. Her Dad watched her but for once he didn't comment on what was going on. For once she realised he was giving her the time and space to think and talk. He looked tired she realised, had he been sleeping since this whole thing began? She was so tired that she didn't care when she tipped the wine bottle neck down into the mug, slammed it back on the table and then took a large gulp.

Her dad didn't comment so she didn't comment on the fact that he was clearly on his fourth drink of the night.

"Thought I told you about drinking wine out of mugs" he said finally.

"Yeah" Avri said swirling the white liquid around the mug. "Things were easier then weren't they?"

"Do you want to go to London to be with your mother?"

Avri shook her head. "No" she took a rather large gulp of wine.

"He didn't rape me" She said finally. "But he came bloody close"

She took a sip of wine again and sat the mug down.

"He err…when I woke up it was just me and her…Amelia in that room, I had to ask her if she had seen…my jeans were undone you see and I didn't know, I mean…I…I thought it would hurt but I wasn't sure. I woke up and my leg was in bits and my hair was gone and the rest…so I had to ask a child…" she shook her head. Her Dad didn't say anything, she got the impression that he didn't want to say anything simply because for the first time in nearly six months Avri wasn't suffering in silence. She took another large gulp of wine forcing it down when it seemed to be almost stuck in her throat. She forced it down anyway.

"So then he comes up and he pistol wipes me and…and then he snuck behind me and he grabbed me, grabbed my ass, grabbed my breasts, put his mouth on my neck and I turned to this child and then told her to shut her eyes all the time I was trying to prepare myself for being raped. Like, how do you even prepare yourself for that? All I could think in that moment was that if it was gonna happen then I wanted some of my dignity left, sounds stupid"

It seemed now she had started to talk it was impossible to stop, the words kept pouring out of her. It was Avri supposed a good thing then that he wasn't saying anything because as sure as she was sitting down talking about the worst day of her life she knew she wouldn't be held responsible for her actions.

"And then just as I thought he was about to do it the phone went off and then Olivia was there and…and you know what happened then…as soon as she was in the room it was like we didn't exist, just something to point the gun at so Olivia would do what he wanted her to do. She told me to look away the same way I had told Amelia too and…and I really wish I didn't blame her for me being there but I do or…I don't know…he's dead you know? Seems easier as lay there on that bed having photos took of my face, in pain from my knee, unable to get a damn painkiller or a drink because they needed to swab me or whatever and I thought if she had never got on that stand and lied about what she had done to him, if she had killed him in the first place then I would have never had to go through that, I wasn't even scared until afterwards you know? Not really. The whole time I was just numb and then it all just hit me at once."

She leaned back on the chair and then turned to look at her father. His face was half in shadow and she got the impression that if the fire alarm was to blare suddenly he wouldn't notice. Finally, he reached out and laid his hand on top of hers and when he spoke his voice was perfectly calm.

"Thank you for telling me this Avri, really it means…more than you could possibly know. And I am sorry, believe me if I could have taken your place I would have done so in a heartbeat. It was…" he shook his head in the darkness as if he couldn't even imagine what he had been through or what he had imagined. She supposed that her father had probably thought the worse for a long time.

"Do you want me to go?" she asked finally.

"No"

"Do you want me to order some food"

"Not yet, give…err…give me a minute"

And they sat there as the sky around them turned dark for a long time their hands clasping at each other thinking over what one man had done to them and yet knowing that it could have been so much worse.

Tonight Avri knew that both her she and her Dad had a lot to forgive and try to forget.

* * *

 **And let me know what you think, hopefully the next chapter will be up soon...**


	13. To Change The Things You Can

**Hi, so here is another chapter, this one is part of a multiple update post my exams. If you are sitting your exams now then good luck.**

 **Disclaimer-Nothing is mine**

 **And let me know what you think. There should be an update following this.**

 **Just a note on this episode which is the one where Barba and Liv push for a prosecution without the victims consent in Season 16. I find this episode very hard to watch because of the controversial subject matter-i thought that Liv was wrong to push for this and i actually agreed with the victim when she said Liv took away her right to choose weather she wanted to prosecute. All of you are entitled to your own opinion based on what you believe however that is the side i come down on and i would ask you all to respect that regardless of your own opinion.**

 **Anyway. Here is the chapter and i hope you all enjoy it.**

* * *

Prosecutor's Daughter

Chapter 13-To Change The Things You Can

* * *

The following morning was filled with a sort of stiltedness in the air that never went away. They finished the leftover pizza-or well Avri did and she decided to focus on the milk mixing in with her coffee. Her Dad had not said a damn thing to her since she had left him sitting at the kitchen table and he was still silent whenever she was in the room. All in all it was hurtful to say the least. Avri hadn't known what to expect when she had told him the truth about what had happened but she had to admit she had not expected some form of silent treatment.

But she supposed that he was very busy with the case he was working on because if the previous case had been filled with twists and turns then this one was even more dominated by the media. It involved the case of AJ Martin who had been caught on camera dragging his wife who had been drunk. Both her father and from what she had gathered-Olivia Benson both wanted to press charges with or without the woman's consent which was just the kind of case that Avri would have usually loved to point the facts out to her Dad and debate about it.

She had a free period one Tuesday and with the entire school prepping for their mock exams next week she decided to not go to the library and instead the subway and then walked to the DA's office. She was told-not by Carmen but by the newest intern in the office that her father had gone to the SVU offices and would be there for most of the day. Avri nodded and then walked back outside wondering if she really had the balls to go back into that office and see those people who had been there at her worst moment.

Especially Olivia Benson.

Who Avri was still not sure if she blamed for this entire mess. In hindsight looking back it might have been a bit hard on her but she had not cared and had instead only focused on herself. Talking about it seemed to make it easier and the only person that she trusted to talk about it seemed to refuse point blank to talk about it anymore.

But it was a nice crisp day and she was in a good mood and she had to stop being afraid. Perhaps then she could sleep again without being plagued by nightmares.

And that was something that she was beginning to seriously need. She wanted to dream without thinking about hands on her and there was a pause where she stood there before she moved to walk the ten minute walk from the offices to the SVU squad.

Besides her leg needed the stretching out now. The knee was still stiff and the cold made it ache but she managed to walk past the police guarding the door and into the elevator with minimal fuss.

She could see her father in Olivia Benson's office and she paused at the door. Rita, the woman who was often against her father in court and was by choice one of his oldest and dearest friends was also there and she could see Amanda Rollins arguing with Nick Amaro. She was just about to turn away when the blonde woman looked up and saw her.

"Avri" she said in surprise. Nick followed her gaze and she felt that now she had no other choice but to go in.

"Hi" she said and she gripped the strap of her bag for courage.

"I was just looking to see my Dad"

"He's in interview with Liv" Fin said smiling at her-they seemed to be glad to see her which was strange considering she didn't think that she had been that close to any of them when she had last been there. There was also another guy who must be the new detective who was watching her with interest. Avri shifted a little and Amanda thankfully took over.

"Carisi this is Avri, Barba's kid, Avri this is Sonny Carisi the new detective to SVU"

"Hey" she said offering her hand out of politeness only to have it shook up and down enthusiastically with a "Hi, Avri" and an accent that was so from Staten Island that even Avri (who had spent most of her childhood in Boston and had a dubious New York accent at best) could pick up on it.

"It's good to see you again" Nick said warmly "We were all wondering how you were doing post-Lewis"

"Better than Liv clearly"

She hadn't meant it to come out as bitchy as it had done but it had. Thankfully nobody had pulled her up on it. Avri was trying here no matter how hard it was and it was…very hard.

"No she's not" Amanda said quietly.

"But she's got Noah now" Fin continued "And this bitch of a case, tell me Avri what does social media say today? Might help us when we take this to trial"

"I though Paula Martin didn't want to press charges?"

"She doesn't" Fin said exchanging a dark look with Amanda.

"So then…."

"You dad and Liv do"

"Oh. How the hell they gonna do that if the victim doesn't want to testify."

"New law that says they can for the victims own good" Nick said not looking up from his paperwork "Makes out job a hell of a lot easier"

Avri raised an eyebrow feeling something that had long ago been dominant raise to the surface again.

"Doesn't that take away the victims right to choose? I mean that's kinda the opposite of what you're here for isn't it?"

"Doesn't matter" said a voice behind her and she jumped nearly ending on Nick's desk. Gritting her teeth slightly because that voice still did bring back the feeling of blood on her face and her jeans rubbing up against her beg legs she turned around and saw Olivia Benson stood there. She had grown out her hair and she looked…younger somehow-ironic really because Avri just felt impossibly older every time she was in this place.

"Hello Avri" it was cool and measured and Avri smiled wondering if her face would crack. She might have spoken about what had happened to her for the first time but that didn't mean that she didn't forget that it had half been Olivia's fault she had been there-and hey there was some improvement-she had accepted that Lewis held majority of the blame-give a girl a break now and then. She wasn't there yet.

There was a pause where the two of them looked at each other and then Avri forced out another long smile.

"I was hoping to see my father"

"He's err…unavailable right now, he said he was sorry, and also to get back to school before the Subway get to busy"

Unavailable. Yeah right, more like didn't want to see her.

She turned around without saying so much as a goodbye and walked back to the elevator pushing the buttons and trying not to cry.

There were footsteps behind her and she turned around to see Olivia Benson.

"Avri listen…err…do you wanna grab some coffee? Five minutes ok, it's just I haven't…I would like to talk"

If Olivia had asked her two days ago the answer would have been a sound fuck off but right now Avri felt like she was fighting this thing alone-clearly her Dad didn't want anything to do with her now he knew what had happened and nobody else understood.

"Sure" she said because she was tired. So unspeakably tired and while she had blamed Olivia for what had happened she had never really thought to ask (what with the woman's life going so perfectly) weather or not she was tired too.

They walked out of the building and to the nearest coffee car. Avri took the cup and stirred in some sugar and then before she could stop herself or have any kind of self control it blurted out in one sentence.

"I told my Dad about everything that happened that day with Lewis and since then he's pretending that it didn't happen. I think he's disgusted with me, I don't blame him. I think sometimes I disgust myself"

Olivia slammed down her take out coffee cup with enough force that the lid came off.

"He does not think that, he doesn't think that and neither should you, you did nothing wrong"

"Doesn't mean it took a long time that I didn't think like that. Blaming you was just easier"

It was the closest thing to an apology that she could say without drudging up all those feelings that she was trying to move past.

Olivia took it as it was and didn't say any more.

"Does err…does it go away? That feeling of…like you did something wrong?"

"Yes, and if you want my advice" Olivia said after a moment's pause. "Then I think that you should speak to someone. It's not a declaration of weakness at all I promise you look I have a guy that I've been going to for a while and my sessions are nearly over…why don't I give him a call and tell him that you might want to pop by"

Avri paused for a second and then shook her head. Right now everything was still raw like a scab that had been constantly picked at and she didn't want to open it again-already it was still painful. There was a pause where she stood there and then Olivia pulled out a card and passed it to her.

"Take the card then" was all she said "And don't be a stranger ok?"

Avri took the card and then nodded.

"Hey about this case, don't push it. If she doesn't want to talk she will not. Take it from me, leave her alone, when or if she wants help then she'll ask for it. Because otherwise if you push it then she's gonna think of you as the enemy for the rest of her life"

Olivia shot her a look and then turned around and walked back into her work.

(Considering how the entire case went down it was clear that Olivia hadn't listened to her)

She kept the card though.

* * *

Olivia carefully did not follow Barba at a run into his office. She carefully did not slam the door shut and she did not thrown herself into the nearest chair with enough force that she nearly ended up sliding off it fixing the DA a look that had previously brought down perps and on more than one occasion Elliot Stabler.

Rafael at least had the decency to look at her without a surprised expression.

It was if he knew what she was going to do.

"So do you want to go into why I just had a conversation with your daughter in which she told me that you blamed her for what happened with Lewis?"

Rafael looked at her then.

"She said that?" he asked and then the surprise and more importantly pain in her friends voice was enough to make her regret for a second that she had been so hard on him when she had nearly kicked down his door demanding an explanation.

"Look I know that's not true. But…I gave her the card of my therapist and I think she needs to see him, but…I mean she gave an opinion on this case, that has to be something good right?"

There was a pause where she sat there and she swallowed looking at Rafael in the face.

"She told me" he said finally sitting down. "She told me what had happened in the damn room with that…monster and I…I didn't know what to say to her, I didn't know what I was supposed to do or say, all I had were these images in my head. Give me some time Liv I'm the one that's got to process them-you try imagining everything and the truth still being worse that whatever you'd kept yourself up at night thinking"

Olivia paused for a second and then had to admit that he had a point. Her viewpoint had changed somewhat since she had, had Noah and she could see where Rafael was coming from.

It was that that made her grab his hand and if the two of them sat there in silence holding hands and reflecting on the damages done to their children through no fault of their own.

* * *

When Rafael did go home that night Avri was on the couch fast asleep. Her face was creased but it was clear that she wasn't having a nightmare which for once he had to admit was good news. He couldn't say how many times that he had watched her from the doorway tossing and turning in her sleep only to have to leave whenever she was near to forcing herself awake.

There was a pause where he stood there and debated what to do. He was so tired. So tired of pretending that everything was ok when it so clearly wasn't. He had spent so much time focusing on Avri that now he was left alone to deal with this himself.

But right now he didn't have the time to deal with that, or anything else for that matter. He was tired, his daughter was finally sleeping and with that he went to bed to get changed before he went for the scotch that he was needing in order to sleep without seeing those haunted eyes that had once belonged to his innocent little girl.

* * *

 **Next chapter might be a bit more cheerful, this arc is nearly over. Enjoy. **


	14. Second And Third Options

**Hi, so here is another chapter, again this is part of a multi update before i go away so with any luck another chapter should be following this one.**

 **Disclaimer-Nothing is mine.**

 **We are slowly getting our way to the end of Season 16. A lot of these chapters will be very loosely based on episodes and i know a lot of you wanted Barba/Olivia to be the main pairing. I know a lot of this story is about Avri but that is what i intended it to be-a story about Barba being a dad rather than Barba and any other pairing. But don't worry i will leave this story open up to your imaginations with a nice little ending. Spoiler alert.**

 **Also anything in italics is Spanish. I am not a native Spanish speaker and i was unsure how accurate google translator was so anything in italics is probably either Barba or Avri speaking Spanish. I wanted to enforce that Avri is bi-lingual even if she didn't see her Dad that often.**

 **Also this story will end with Season 17 which might be a bit more loose plot wise than anything before.**

 **Hope that clears up any questions. Please read and review.**

* * *

Prosecutor's Daughter

Chapter 14-Second and Third Options

* * *

When Avri woke up this morning she saw that the sun was shining. It was a weak sun but it was a sure sign that the weather was changing and that had to be a good thing. The other thing she noticed when she woke up was that the entire apartment seemed to smell like cooking eggs. She sat up with a start wincing at the migraine that was forming. While she had moved past the drinking to get to sleep at night which initially had helped her sleep whenever she had been terrified that Lewis was going to come for her, the lack of sleep was catching up with her and she was beginning to get migraines.

She opened the door to her bedroom and stepped cautiously into the hallway. Her father was not what one would call a great cook-he could do the basic's that was it and to be honest Avri suspected that he had spent most of his time at the office rather than coming home to eat alone. But despite everything she knew he knew enough about food in order to keep himself fed. When she peered into the kitchen she saw that there was no expense spared with breakfast. Her father had made omelettes with salmon and spinach and had somehow made them look delicious and that was delightful surprise.

"Morning" was all he said. He was looking over the newspaper and it was such a domesticated setting after all of the silence at the kitchen table after the last couple of weeks that she decided to simply sit down at the table and push the coffee pot towards her.

Her Dad waited until she was halfway through her breakfast before he put down the newspaper and stared at her. "I never thought you were disgusting…or to blame for anything, the only person to blame is Lewis. I just wanted to say that"

Avri looked down at the mixture of eggs on her plate. "Thanks" she said thickly. She decided that, that was down to her food in her mouth and not because of the rapidly blinking back tears that she suddenly felt compelled to do. Her Dad's hand lingered on her own for a second longer than he usually did and then he turned back to his paper.

It wasn't that easy. But it was enough. For just then, it was enough.

* * *

And then her father came home in a horrible mood. He slammed the door shut causing Avri to raise an eyebrow over the chemistry paper she was attempting (and failing) to complete.

"Bad day" she asked over the increased beating in her heart. Her Dad slammed his briefcase down on the desk and went straight for the scotch.

"I had to put Amaro's father on the stand for beating his wife and even with Amaro's testimony he still got off. He was one of those classic wife beaters. Went into the courtroom with his wife by his side and his ex-wife and his daughter singing his praises and nobody was able to see through him. He charmed the whole courtroom and he walked out a freeman"

There was a pause where they both sat there and then Avri put down her book. "Was this another case where you took it too court without the victim's co-operation? Because you know how I feel about stuff like that"

"Yeah I heard about what you were saying to Nick. You get more than three whiskey's down that man and he sings like a teenager seeing a plea deal for the first time" He sat down and gave a sign. "The victim was his new wife who was practically your age by the way. Gave her a cracked skull and she still defended him"

"It's sad" Avri said after a while "But I suppose it is her choice"

She bit her lip for a second and then she decided to ask the question.

"Is err…is the reason your so upset about this case about your…about err…your dad?"

Her Dad turned to her surprise etched on his face. "I didn't realise that you knew about that"

Avri paused. In truth the only reason she knew about the…complicated relationship between the her grandparents (and all she really knew was that it was bad) was because she had once asked her mother about it. And Avri was willing to bet that she knew very little about it.

"Mom" she said finally. Her Dad blinked. Clearly whatever answer he had been expecting it had not been that one. "Oh" was all he said and then he leaned back into the couch.

"Your…my Dad he…it wasn't abuse in the sense that you think Avri. But it was bad. I wont sit here and deny that I'm glad that he's dead and buried"

And Avri knew instinctually that she wasn't going to get anything else out of him other than that. Instead she decided to turn the TV on and hope like hell her father wasn't going to spend the entire night locked away inside his own head.

Life had only just gotten back to normal.

* * *

The way it seemed to work was that there was always another victim and always another case. The way time seemed to continue there was always another victim and always another person to prosecute. So much so that Avri in particular found herself slipping back into her life-pre Lewis with ease. She kept the card Olivia had given her in her desk draw and sometimes she took it out and held it in her hand. The name and number of the person that she could talk to. She went and took self defence classes and she went and sat in the nearest Starbucks and watched sometimes the world go by people that didn't have a clue that she could see some sort of light at the end of the tunnel.

There were more cases that she had heard about. There was the one where a girl her own age had been raped and had blamed it on an innocent man. Avri who knew intimately what happened when you were in a dark headspace like that found herself shutting off her social media accounts so she didn't have to see what was being written about her by people…complete strangers that didn't have a clue what was going on with the girl they were victimising. That didn't make it ok for her father to kill him but she understood manipulation and she found late at night when she was staring at her ceiling-a better understanding about what it must have been like for her father during the Lewis debacle both pre and post her kidnapping.

The second case that she had heard about had not come through the usual social media channels. This time she had heard about it from the file her father had dumped on the corner of the table before he went for a shower (or so he had shouted at her) when she had poked her head out of her blasted textbook long enough to see him.

By the time he had come out towelling his hair she was just finishing the last footnotes off her essay when he sat down.

"I need to tell you something"

"Oh fuck" was all Avri could say. There was never any indication where something like that sounded good.

Her Dad rolled his eyes at her which she took to be an admonishment on the language front and not much else. She decided that she was going to ask anyway.

"What's up?"

Oh god please don't let it be another serial killer/serial rapist. Avri couldn't handle that right now. Not when things were already turning out to be slowly getting better day by day, bit by bloody bit.

"When you spoke to your grandmother last did she say anything about err…her mother"

"No" Avri said looking up from her book. "But then I only asked her for advice on shortening a skirt and then she got distracted by what skirt and how short it was. That was a week and a half ago"

Her Dad stopped and stared at her then, there was a split second's worth of pause where she could tell that he was wondering what skirt she had asked to shorten and how short in the end that it had actually come too. Avri smirked and sipped some tea-since Lewis she found that she had gone off coffee and how she had used to drink it to keep the nightmares away. Finally he smirked and looked to one side and then switched to Spanish. It was a language that she had grown up with-with one side of the family and while her reading and writing of the language was pretty poor her speaking and understanding of it was fluent so when her Dad switched (almost instantaneously and probably without even thinking about it-she thought jealously). She struggled to keep up.

 _"_ _Your grandmother has decided to leave her job in order to help your great-grandmother. The job that she has dedicated her life too by the way. Your great-grandmother is like her daughter, like you, you all come from a long line of stubborn women. She refuses to admit that the time has come for her to go into a home or at least get some help that's not her daughter"_

It took Avri a second to disentangle that web of information and she sat back in her chair. The last time she had seen her great-grandmother she must have been five or six and all she could remember was the tiny apartment with the dreamcatchers all along the window. Her Dad's phone buzzed pulling them both out of their memory webs and she turned her head slightly to see who it was. Her Dad sighed in exasperation and then put his phone down.

"You mind coming with me?" he asked eventually. "Chances are neither one of your relatives will give me grief if you are with me"

Avri smiled and then switched back to Spanish even if the language was a little stilted due to lack of use. Either way she was sure her great grandmother was going to speak Spanish to her whenever she could, if memory served her correctly.

 _"_ _Yeah sure"_

Her great grandmother spent ten minutes hugging her, another ten telling her that she looked 'too pretty for words' and then another ten telling her father that she was underweight. They had come away with three Tupperware dishes filled with Spanish potatoes, a pie and something that Avri knew she should be able to pronounce but that she couldn't…not any more but she took the food and the smile that came with it. She didn't know if her great-grandmother had ever really understood or even knew about what had happened with Lewis and the older woman herself had given nothing away.

Avri didn't see why she had to mention it. This was a...second option if you will. A chance to be herself to her family that she had already become estranged to in the past. She wasn't going to let that man dictate her life anymore.

(Even if that card continued to stay in her draw buried under the photo of her and her Mom from when she was a child)

* * *

She had the card in her hand when she got home from school for the weekend. She was alone in the apartment and she was still holding the fucking piece of paper trying to control her breathing. The councillor wasn't something that she was prepared to deal with at least not this side of Christmas but she couldn't deny that it made her feel safe to at least know there was an option.

The door opened and she turned around to see her father. Something showed in his face that her sliding the card into her phone case and standing up. She didn't know what had happened-at least not then-and there she was standing and crossing the room so that she could hug her father who took a deep breath and closed his eyes. She thought back to the card, to what she wanted to do know that her nightmare was over and she closed her own eyes.

So much for second or third options to reintroduce yourself to yourself she thought.

* * *

 **And there we go, hopefully there will be another chapter following. Enjoy. **


	15. The Overlooked

**Hi, so here i think is the final part of the multiple update. I did better than i thought i would but know i will be taking two weeks off to deal with results and a holiday but you have three chapters to enjoy so...**

 **This chapter is dedicated to all of those who feel like they are trapped and need someone to talk to. I promise you based on my own experiences there are loads of people out there who will listen and you will not be bothering them. Life is a wonderful thing. Please don't feel like you are alone. Avri is not alone, neither are you.**

 **Due to computer issues i got the episodes of this series a but messed up. Therefore i will be writing about the series final of Season 16 and the episode in which Liv's son contracts measles in the next chapter.**

 **And there are only ten more chapters of this story left. The final nine chapters will be loosely based on episodes from Season 17 and will probably have more Barba/Benson but it will probably be really slow burn so please keep that in mind.**

 **Disclaimer-Nothing is mine just Avri.**

 **Also the Chicago PD episode might not be accurate but i have only just started watching my way through the series so...**

 **Please Read and Review and let me know what you think.**

* * *

Prosecutor's Daughter

Chapter 15-The Overlooked.

* * *

In terms of other police forces that dealt in sex crimes or any other type of crimes across the country Avri knew that SVU was not just the only one. She had however never heard of case that was twisted enough to see a whole bunch of them up here.

The Intelligence Unit in Chicago had been making waves on social media. They were run Avri knew by a man called Hank Voight who was considered half genius and half lunatic by most people. It had been her study day and while Avri knew that personally while she had been making significant process since she had been held captive, there were still somethings that she was struggling with and one of them was being left alone for any long periods of time during the day. Surprisingly enough it was at night when she felt safe even when she was alone because she could make sure all of the doors and windows were locked and she was in control of the situation.

But during the day was another story. Even something as simple as the branches tapping against the window while she was working on something for school was enough to send her heart racing and her train of thought twirling away, looking around as if she half expected Lewis to come out of the shadows with the gun he had knocked her out with. So she found herself spending days with her father in his office or in the room next to it and working on her laptop while he worked through casefiles.

"You know…if you wanted to talk about Lewis?" Her Dad asked trailing off without looking up from his file and Avri shook her head not looking up from his laptop. "Dad I'm fine"

Her Dad shot her a pointed look as if to say that Avri was sat in the middle of the conference room on a laptop on the floor with her legs crossed history research spread out amongst her instead of doing her essay on the table back home. Avri smiled but didn't comment. Things right now were good. No flashbacks, no migraines and no nightmares and she didn't want something that was no big deal (at least nothing compared that what she had been through previously) being analysed by her over-worried father. She returned down to the paper that was in front of her and she decided to try a different argument.

"Big case?" she asked. She shrugged without looking up feeling the eyes on her. "That's the third sigh you've made in nearly ten minutes…" she paused twirling the pen around in her hand before turning back to her notes before she asked the question that she was actually curious to ask.

"Does it have anything to do with this Chicago Intelligence Department thing?"

Her Dad sighed. "I don't even wanna know how you get half of your information but you always seem to have more information than I do about what goes on around here, yeah if you must know it does. You heard of…well…never mind…we got a guy who has raped, murdered and then set the houses on fire of over a dozen women-that we know about at least. Olivia's got cases that range to 2004 and that's probably only the tip of the iceberg when you think about it. There was a woman who worked for the Chicago PD department, Nadia. She was good friends with them and he murdered her just because he could. The problem is the entire case is difficult to prosecute because half of the victims remains are so old it's difficult to get any DNA off them and Yates…is good…he's like…"

Her Dad trailed off suddenly and with a swooping feeling in her stomach that almost made her retch, Avri knew who he was thinking off.

"He's like Lewis?"

"He's got the same…serial killer charm…so to speak, yes…"

Avri swallowed harshly. "Well I think that's one case that I'm gonna miss seeing you win then" she said finally. Her Dad sighed again looking at her with that sad expression he got whenever he too thought of Lewis and the damage that had not only been done but was probably still in the making-bubbling under the surface and dangerous to the touch.

But whatever he was going to say was rudely interrupted by the door opening and in came Olivia Benson looking tired and more than a little caffeine deprived ushering in three detectives one of whom (a woman) looked on the verge of tears, a rather good looking detective who was doing a rather badly attempted job of comforting her considering he was awkwardly patting her on the shoulder and an older man who looked like he wanted to punch the walls down.

The older man alighted on her father like he was some sort of beacon on an airport runway.

"Tell me we got enough to prosecute this sick little freak".

Her Dad jerked his head in her direction and Avri saw everyone's gaze turn to her. She tried to smile but it was rather off putting considering the younger two detectives looked surprised she was even in the room and the older one looked annoyed.

"Sergeant Voight" her Dad said sitting down with a tired expression. "Detective Lindsey, Detective Halstead, my daughter Avri, Avri these are the Detectives that I told you about, from Chicago."

"Oh" Detective Halstead said looking around the room. "Didn't know you had company"

"Doubt that would have stopped you" her Dad muttered under her breath. "Avri could you give me a few minutes with the Detectives please. I gotta sought out this case"

"Not much to sought out…" Sergeant Voight started but Olivia Benson quelled him with one look. Her Dad jerked her head with some sort of an apologetic look and Avri took that to mean that he loved her but would she please piss off while he dealt with this. She nodded and smiled when Detective Halstead got the door for her considering she was weighed down with books on the English Royal Family in the 1700s. Because of this she missed the rather loaded look that Olivia Benson shot her father and if she had seen that look she would have immediately asked what the fuck was going on. (And though she did not know it yet what was going on between them)

She was still sat on a bench reading when the door opened, and the blonde detective rushed out clearly upset. Avri watched as she walked rather quickly to the elevator and then turned her attention to her books again as Oliva Benson and Detective Halstead came out hurrying after her looking tired and withdrawn. But she noted, Detective Halstead did at least seem to smile at her (or in her direction) as he passed which Avri thought showed at least someone had something resembling friendliness.

She looked down at her hands and thought of the man that her father thought was the closest thing to William Lewis that he was ever going to prosecute, and she felt the walls closing in for a second and then she felt a hand touch her shoulder. She closed her eyes and then jerked around so quickly she probably gave herself whiplash. It was only Hank Voight. Avri remembered him now. He was watching her with something resembling concern though Avri was unsure. Out of everyone she had met during the course of being…well…a prosecutor's daughter he was sure as shit one of the most difficult people to get a good enough read on.

"You ok kiddo?"

"Yeah" she said breathing heavily "Just reminded me of someone I don't want to remember. Sneaking up on people I mean…err…"

Oh God Barba she told herself sternly, your acting like a complete and utter idiot.

Hank Voight just nodded and then his eyes strayed to the elevator where his two detectives had just made a full run for.

"You know, I knew two kids, two girls really, not much older than you who didn't think she needed to talk or needed help or…thought they were both invincible you know, and they ended up strung out on drugs with a boyfriend ten years older than them or they were on the streets in massage parlours for their next fix before me or anyone else could get them any help."

"What happened to them after you got them help?" Avri asked even although she didn't really want to know-she had a feeling that this was one of those stories where she was going to regret hearing the answer too.

"One became a detective and the other was raped and murdered by lunatic who I didn't catch in time"

Avri didn't know what was worse the fact that Hank Voight was saying all of this but the matter of fact tone that he was saying it in.

"Don't be afraid to ask for help you know. Much better than the alternative, stops people from being overlooked and then forgotten about."

And then he was gone walking down the hallway to the girl who he had saved who hadn't been raped and murdered by a lunatic who he didn't catch in time.

Avri leaned back on the bench and took in that entire conversation. Fucking hell, she thought to herself. The reports her father had (that she may or may not have sneaked a look at) on the Chicago Intelligence Squad or whatever they were called were not kidding when they had said Hank Voight was slightly more off the beaten path than most other commanders. There was off the beaten path and then there was fully off the path and into the forest setting up a campfire and never planning to come out, which is where she thought Hank Voight might be in terms of the weirdness scale.

But he might have a point she realised. Or did he? God this was confusing.

* * *

Avri didn't say anything during the trial, she didn't go and see it, she heard about the strange kind of phase the man on trial had gone through when he had gotten half-hard from seeing the photos of the raped women he had murdered from Lucy, Olivia Benson's nanny who had come by one day when Avri was home from school with a sleeping to Noah to ask if she could stay here for a few hours because Olivia was testifying and she seemed to have taken the spare set of keys along with her own this morning.

"It's ok" she said settling Noah on her knee "I know she only does it on trials that she finds difficult. It's like she wants to make sure that her house is safe"

When she had been told Avri had gone to the bathroom and retched for a second. When she had looked up she had seen herself pale and shaking in the bathroom mirror and that was the moment when she realised that in all reality she was still not fine and that she might need help.

Noah was promptly taken by Olivia when she came around, and Avri hid in her bedroom while she was there. That feeling of being trapped in her own skin was back and she wanted it gone forever. She didn't want to feel like she was terrified all the time. She had thought that she was on top of that feeling and now it seemed because of one case that had been mentioned in a passing comment she wasn't.

And even Avri knew that she couldn't live like that forever.

* * *

It was a long time before she got off the carpet floor and wiped her eyes. She had decided what had to happen. Whatever else Avri was not going to be one of the overlooked like Hank Voight had described who had needed help but didn't know how to ask for it and had instead suffered in silence. When you thought about Erin Lindsey and her friend Nadia and the lives they had built for themselves the reality was it was people. If you had good people on your side then there was a chance you would be ok.

"Hey" her Dad said when she came out. "Hey" he pulled her into a hug as she closed her eyes and tried to breathe. She was safe, she had been for a long time and there was no reason for her to get emotional about it now. But she had made a decision, a monumental one and she wanted approval on it like any teenager who had just decided that she was not ok.

"I'm gonna go and see Liv's councillor Dad" she said into his shoulder. "I'm not ok"

"I know your not" Her Dad said finally once they were sat at the table. "And that's ok. You take as long you need. I'm not gonna go anywhere"

And that really was all that mattered. It certainly made asking for help feel a little less scary.

* * *

 **And let me know what you think. I will try and keep updates after my time off as normal as possible. **


	16. Fire And Rain

**Hi, so here is another chapter. I didn't think that i would be able to get another chapter published but i found myself with some free time and i wrote this which i think has got to be one of my favourite chapters so far and serves as the end of Season 16. There are nine more chapters left of this story and they will very loosely follow Season 17.**

 **Also as i explained in the last chapter note the episodes are switched around a bit here.**

 **Disclaimer-Nothing is mine just Avri.**

 **Please read and review and let me know what you think.**

* * *

Prosecutor's Daughter

Chapter 16-Fire and Rain

* * *

Avri was putting away the books in her locker when she heard someone call her name. It had been three weeks since she had decided to seek help and already she had to admit that she was sleeping better. Her therapist who was a nicer older man had helped her to admit that she was afraid and once she could admit that she found that it was a little easier to breathe whenever she was alone in the dark.

She turned around when she heard her name and had to fight back the butterflies that immediately batted around in her stomach like they were out of the cage when she saw who it was, and she had to duck her head even though her hair (now collarbone length) didn't do anything to hide her.

"Hey Zach" she said turning around. Zack was a boy in her math class that she sat next to. He was great at the subject and Avri was terrible but he also sat next to her in English Lit so it was an even trade. He smiled and Avri smiled back.

"A few of us are coming over for a rainbow party at Savannah's after lunch, you know blow of school and go get drunk. Thought you might wanna come. Totally ok if you don't wanna get naked though. Savannah doesn't wanna pressure anyone. But might be good for you to relax a bit"

Avri thought about it. More than that she was tempted about it but then she had a sudden violent image of what her father would do if he found out she bunked of school, got drunk and had semi-naked selfies taken of her.

"Yeah no thanks" she said smiling. Zach nodded his head grinning at her. "Well I'd thought I'd ask" he said finally. "Oh" he said finally and then he moved a piece of hair out of her eyes. Avri grinned even as the flash from a nearby camera blinded her a little. She turned to see Jack, Zach's best mate grinning at her and she flipped him the finger as she watched them go laughing to get naked and drunk like any other sixteen year old.

* * *

Later that night her Dad asked her about the rainbow party. He did it in such a way that was beyond casual and Avri didn't have the heart to lie to him about anything so instead she decided to be truthful. Plus there was no real way of knowing weather or not the information that she had been asked to join wouldn't leak anyway and Avri couldn't deal with sitting in a squad room and having her personal life dissected again.

"I got invited to it"

Her Dad choked on his water.

"You didn't go?" he asked once he stopped coughing. Avri stared at him. Hadn't she just said that?

"Didn't I just say that?"

"Good" her dad said finally once he had swallowed another mouthful of water. "Because the last thing I need to worry about is a naked selfie of you on the internet. Do you have any on your phone? Because if you do then I need them"

Avri shook her head. She did have one she had kept which was a side profile of Zach without a shirt on nothing explicit but she thought that she might be entitled to something a little good in her life after all of the trouble of the past months and Zach Brightman shirtless was without a shadow of a doubt something good in her life.

"Your, not going to prosecute them for anything are you?"

Her Dad laughed. "For what bunking of school, getting drunk and giving each other oral? If I had to do that then I'd be putting half of the high school students in New York on the stand. No everyone as far as I can tell was overage and enthusiastic and the weed one student brought can be knocked down to a misdemeanour. They've had their naked selfies broadcasted across a school and their parents phones probably, somehow I think that's gonna be enough trouble for some of them to learn their lesson"

Avri slowly chewed a mouthful of pasta and decided to leave that alone.

Hopefully the picture Jack had taken of Zach brushing her hair out of her eyes didn't make it's way back to her Dad. There was only so much embarrassment she could take in one lifetime.

She smiled around her fork as she thought about it.

Of course the next day she found out about Noah and Avri barely smiled once.

* * *

Olivia was going through the photos that had been taken on the second sweep of the phones while Noah slept fitfully. She was dotting her Is and crossing her Ts she knew but she didn't want to sleep. When Noah was asleep she was awake that was just how it went right now. Instead she took another gulp of wine and reached of the second stack of photos and then nearly dropped her glass.

It was Avri against the locker and she was with the guy Olivia knew to be Zach Brightman. He was brushing hair out of her eyes but Olivia could see Avri's face and could see that lovesick gaze that she had. Olivia stared at it for a second and decided instantly three things, one that it was a harmless photo, two Rafi did not need to know about it and three…good for Avri.

She smirked and then placed the picture to one side. The next time she saw Avri she would give it to her. She checked the phone list and noted that they had not taken Avri's phone. She rolled her eyes heavenwards. No doubt Amanda and Carrisi had decided that Barba could do that himself and if she knew her…friend…well enough she knew he was not going to go through his daughter's phone without her knowledge.

To be on the safe side Olivia thought that she might ask to see her phone herself.

Just to make sure.

* * *

Avri half heaved the picnic hamper up the stairs to Liv's apartment then gave up and took the elevator the rest of the way. Her grandmother upon hearing that there was a sick child and a mother cheating her way around the teacher rules that said every kid had be vaccinated had immediately cooked Liv a weeks worth of food and asked her to take it round while she checked all the schools in her district to see if any had measles.

There was something in the Cuban community-whenever something bad happened the simple answer was simple feed that person.

She knocked on the door and Liv opened it looking exhausted. Avri kinda felt bad.

"Do you have vaccination updates?" the woman asked. Avri blinked. "Course I'm vaccinated" she said holding up the hamper. "My teacher grandmother sends food"

Olivia opened the door and Avri dumped the basket on the table feeling the muscles shift in her arms. Her grandma must have really gone to town-cooking when someone was angry or stressed was also another way of dealing with things and her grandmother had lost her mother to old age, nearly lost her granddaughter to a mass rapist and now had an anti-vaccine mom with two sick kids running around next to her school district. Avri was surprised she had managed to restrain herself to one picnic basket of food.

"Thanks" Liv said wiping her hair out of her eyes. "Can I see your phone?"

"Huh?"

"Your father never checked it I know him too well but I've got to ask weather or not you have any photos of that party on your phone"

"It's not like I would share them if I did" she pointed out.

Olivia raised an eyebrow.

"I have one" Avri amended. "But it's not that bad honestly he's not naked"

Another fixed look and Avri sighed loading up the picture. Liv sent it to herself and then deleted it. Avri stared at her.

"Best to be on the safe side with stuff like this" was the only answer she got. "But I suppose you can have this one" and she handed Avri the picture of her and Zach at her lockers.

"Doesn't look like there's anything wrong with that one"

Was it her imagination or was Liv fighting a smile? Avri coughed trying to pretend she wasn't affected.

It was clear that the older woman had more problems on her plate and didn't need her as another one so she said her thanks and then turned to walk out of the door before the question she really wanted to ask popped out before she could stop it.

"Do you think that you can have a relationship after…after…" she finished lamely. Olivia understood what she was asking instantly. After Lewis.

"Yes" she said. "Yes you can"

And that was all Avri wanted to hear.

* * *

Rafael sighed looking over the documents in front of him. Taking statements from girls not much older than his daughter who had been trafficked for sex was one of the hardest thing he had done. Even if you didn't include Olivia's baby daddy drama thrown into the mix. Sometimes all Rafael wondered was what it was like to have a normal life. How did people who didn't see these pictures or hear these words cope? Ignorance really was bliss.

Avri was sat at the table reading.

"How as your appointment with your therapist?" he asked not looking up. If she wanted to tell him she would he theorised. She didn't need him to butt in.

Avri didn't even look up instead she nodded.

"Good, I thought maybe I'd come to court with you tomorrow"

And that had him looking up in shock.

"Really?"

"Yeah, unless that's a problem?"

"No…" Yes. "It's…it's gonna be a hard case you get that. It's sex trafficking"

"I know but…Doctor Lindstrom thinks it might be good for me to tackle things head on so…" she looked up at her thumbnail half in her mouth and Rafael had to shrug because what else could he say?

"Fine but you sit behind me. I want you in my line of sight and not in this bastards"

He remembered the look Lewis had given his daughter and shivered slightly. If Avri picked up on it or thought the same thing then she didn't say anything.

* * *

She was dressed in red when she sat behind him, Avri going back to colours after months in black had to be a good thing surely? Her red skirt and white top made her stand out a bit more but thankfully Johnny D or whatever his name was didn't seem to care. He was staring at Ariel as she testified and each word was getting harder and harder. He had a feeling that if by some miracle the jury acquitted that Elana the red headed judge he knew so well would overturn in a heartbeat even if it did mean the end of her career.

Avri's face had been set in stone for most of the testimony and Rafael tried not to glance at her even as it kicked off in the courtroom. He had a feeling she was sorting out her own stuff but he noted she was gripping her hands so tight there were gonna be fingernail marks on her skin when she pried them apart.

As he turned around to watch the court officers get the courtroom under control Johnny D perhaps knowing as everyone did that he was losing a life sentence make his move.

The first gunshot killed the officer dead, the second hit the judge and by then the SVU squad were returning fire but Rafael didn't care about that. He turned around in one motion in a way he knew was gonna fuck up his back and grabbed a surprised Avri by the shoulder and shoved her to the floor praying she would have the good sense to stay there as bullets whizzed past them.

It took perhaps five minutes and it ended with three officers dead, the judge with a bullet in the shoulder and Nick Amaro with his leg and chest half split open.

He moved to the judge first. He trusted Liv enough to know she would go to Amaro. Elana was clutching her shoulder and was white with shock but she was alive. He knew she had two kids of her own at home and he knew it was worth losing his tie to ensure she got back to her own family.

Finally the EMTs took her away as Olivia came back in covered in blood. She went straight to Ariel who was shaking and Rafael turned to see Avri but before he could Liv called out without even turning to look at him-

"She's outside. Sonny got her out from under the benches while you were applying pressure, she's fine. She's not hit"

And that was all he needed to know.

Avri was stood against the wall looking dazed. The younger detective from Staten Island was stood next to her but as soon as he saw Rafael he was gone after Nick and Amanda. Rafael didn't even care he just clutched Avri too him.

"You alright?" he asked and Avri nodded.

"When it fucking rains it pours around hear doesn't it?" she asked and for once he didn't care about the language.

"You sure?"

"Yeah Dad I'm fine. Can we just go sit in your office for a bit?"

There was still stuff to do, he wanted to go to the hospital to see Nick and god knows Jack McCoy would need to be briefed. He imagined both he and his supervisor Michael Cutter were both going to come down here as soon as they could fight their way past security but he didn't care.

"Sure" was all he could say.

* * *

Two weeks later the adoption of Noah Porter Benson was finalised and Avri was invited to the ceremony at Liv's place. She dressed in pale pink off the shoulder dress with a neat skirt that flared to her knees and her pink shoes. It was decidedly feminine but she was sick of black and finally now she didn't need to wear it anymore. The monsters were all dead and she had lived and she would be damned if one of them would stop her from living her life.

She was after all still texting Zach Brightman who after a month had finally gotten his phone back.

She helped herself to a cupcake watching as Nick and Amanda said a clandestine goodbye. Nobody really knew what had taken place between the two of them but Avri knew Amanda was hurting even if she was putting on a brave face. And she too would miss Nick. He had always been good to her regardless of what shit was going on in both of their lives.

She turned to go and see if she could sneak baby Noah some icing and she heard her Dad and Olivia in the next room.

"She seems to be coping alright" her Dad said finally and Avri rolled her eyes at the worry.

"Of course she is…she's tougher than you think"

She peered around the edge of the door to see that they were holding hands and she snapped her head back leaning against the wall her mind racing.

Of course she thought thinking of all the signs that she had missed. Of course.

And she found that she was smiling. Of course. Of course she didn't mind.

It was no thing she thought listening to the sounds of people celebrating, what she had seen and been through to smile.

Long may it continue.

* * *

 **And there's that little surprise that you all wanted so badly from the beginning of this story.**

 **Enjoy and i will update as soon as i am able to do so. **


	17. Unwritten Rules

**Hi, so here is another chapter fresh off from the hols and i hope you all enjoy it. This is based loosely on 17x01 and 17x02 and the final eight chapters of this story will also feature episodes sporadically from Season 17.**

 **Disclaimer-Nothing is mine.**

 **Please Read and Review and i hope you all enjoy.**

* * *

Prosecutor's Daughter

Chapter 17-Unwritten Rules

* * *

Avri had gone on a class trip to Paris during the week that the whole Monster M.E thing. The school in perhaps an attempt to move past the entire measles outbreak and the whole sex party had allowed the French Language class to continue their week's trip but they were strictly monitored though Avri had to admit that they were not into the night when most of the teachers went to bed. Seriously was half ten the average bedtime of those who were over the age of thirty? Either way when the doors were closed the group of students who could buy alcohol (and that was a seriously low age in France) brought out the bottles and they shared the wine in mugs. Avri even on their last night tried champagne for the first time in a mug in her shorts next to Zack Brightman her legs swinging through the wide slats in the balcony watching the lights in Paris twinkle away down below them.

She felt reborn when she stepped off the plane and she had laughed and smiled and caught a cab back to her place and because of the roaming charges (which were incredibly outrageous by the way) she had switched off the phone and when she did switch it on coming up the elevator of her apartment building she nearly choked on her Starbucks (not the same in the US as it was in France) and nearly doused the entire side of the elevator with coffee, caramel and whipped cream.

By the time she had gotten back into her apartment and dumped her suitcase on the couch she was still so engrossed she didn't hear the bathroom door open and her Dad come out hastily dressed and rubbing his hair dry with a towel.

"Hey babe" he said looking thrilled to see her and Avri managed a genuine smile because despite everything he was still her Dad and regardless of how beautiful Paris was in the fall she had missed him. He hugged her and she hugged him back and then when he eventually let go of her she could tell he was taking in all the signs that after nearly nine months the nightmares about William Lewis had finally stopped and that she was sleeping through the night without any sign or fears of ghosts or demons lurking in shadows.

"You look well" he said warmly and she knew that for once she did. She had finally gotten rid of the black wardrobe that had dominated her clothing choices for too long and she was now wearing a light pink dress with butterflies on it over her tights and brown boots. It had been her. The Avri she had been once upon a time when it had seemed she had everything to play for. Now she was back, a bit battered and a bit of the light that was her dimmed a little, but William Lewis had not destroyed her and that way she was going to claim that a good victory.

"Yeah, Paris was…dreamy" she said finally. "Great city, plus by now I think I'm tri-lingual so that's gotta be good for college." She decided to leave out the bit about Zack Brightman and his smile and the way he had passed her the champagne bottle and the way it had tasted on her tongue and the way the whole world had seemed within her grasp in the dark lit city that made New York the city that supposedly never slept look tired and dull.

"Dreamy…" her Dad said raising an eyebrow. "You sure it was Paris and not the boys of Paris?"

"No, Paris we should go there again you know. Beautiful city you can get lost in it and nobody knows who you are or what your past is, everything is just so—" she trailed off.

"Dreamy" her Dad deadpanned for her.

There was a pause where she stood there and then she noticed that there were subtle changes in her apartment. There was a small red box in the corner and it was filled with toys that were for a small child and Avri was willing to bet all of the time she had spent in Paris that it was Noah Porter-Benson's toybox. She noted the blanket folded over the chair and the fact that kids cutlery in a box at the side as if Olivia was going to collect it when she stopped by today or some other day.

She did not comment on this though she was surprised. She had, had plenty of time to think in Paris and she had reconciled herself to a relationship between Olivia Benson and her Dad fairly quickly. She had of course forgotten about little Noah Porter-Benson.

She was surprised however at the ease at which the child had slotted into her Dad's life. She had barely any childhood memories of being with her Dad as both him and her Mom had worked and then more often than not left her with a childminder while she did. The concept of seeing a small child hanging around her apartment was a jarring reminder of her own childhood.

"I wanted to call you but…well…If I had turned on my phone I would have had to have checked my Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook account and then I would have had to check my messages and then I would have had to probably upload my photos to the cloud and if I had done that and rang you on top of it you would have been looking at a phone bill that was at least in the 100s if not 300s so I thought I'd save you the trouble"

"Yeah well…thanks for that" her Dad said sarcasm in his tone. "And so help me if I do get the phone bill and there is so much of as a cent on the thing I will be annoyed. Like do unspeakable things to your allowance annoyed.

Avri grinned at then sat down feeling every bone in her body sag as she sat back on her own couch again. She turned to take the coffee her Dad was offering and then she decided to ask the question.

"You wanna explain how you missed that the ME I spoke to at the Christmas Party was really a serial killer who liked removing pieces of women? Seriously? I mean I know we had our own problems but seriously Dad how the hell did anyone miss that?"

Her Dad rolled his eyes. "Believe me I don't wanna ask. And for the record all you said to him was hi and he said hi back and shook your hand-of course knowing what I know now that doesn't help matters but let's not pretend that you were the best of friends please. McCoy of course wants this completely gone before we become even more of a laughing stock than we already are as department. Chief Dodds has been on Liv's back since day one and now Amaro has gone she's down a man and he wants to put someone forwards and the Lord only knows what kind of monumental mistake that is going to turn out to be. Either way…I'm glad your home. Sometimes I needed you to ground me" He smiled at her and Avri wanted to desperately ask him about Liv but she knew that that door was toxic and she wasn't sure if she wanted to know about it. There was a big difference from knowing that something was going on, seeing it first hand and then learning all the little sordid details.

He was her dad after all.

She titled her head to the side and watched him. "Have you got enough evidence to charge him then? Because I read that he had Rita your old friend as defence council and you and I both know that she's one of the two defence attorney's in New York who can beat you and that was before he signed on John Whatever-His-Last-Name who got the guy who raped the porn star off on technicality. Now you might be in real danger of letting the Murder ME walk."

"Firstly don't believe everything you get from your Twitter account. Secondly…the first times a million and need I remind you that the judge let the guy off the hook not John 'Whatever his last name'. And I can win against both of them"

He said this in such a way that even Avri could see the 'So there' that was tacked onto the end of that sentence but she decided to let it go and focus on the more important things. Like unpacking and getting her things washed and finally showing her Dad his present which happened to be a very big bag of the European coffee the kind that made him light up a little like a kid on Christmas.

And then she was going to figure out what the hell the killer ME that she had spoken to at Christmas had turned out to be the kind of person who would cut women into pieces and throw them into the lake.

* * *

Avri had not gone to the courtroom even though she was still not really back at school. With the measles outbreak and the whole sex party thing the school was still bumping up procedures that didn't infringe on their rights (because if you thought taking their phones in order to stop the spreading of pornography was bad then Avri knew some of the Moms and Dad's at her school would cause outright rebellion if anything else happened that caused chaos at home) and yet still protected their students from harm. Therefore Avri (who still had some afternoon classes off) came back from school and logged onto her laptop determined to spend the time alone in the flat to get used to being…well alone again all things considering.

She had just begun getting used to the idea that there were no more ghosts around the corner when the door opened with a bang and she nearly dropped the laptop onto the floor.

It was her Dad. Well in reality who else was it going to be, but he was smiling with that sort of look that Avri knew meant victory. Which was great if his victory hadn't shaved ten years of her life. And she hadn't already known about it due to the fact that her phone got popups whenever something interesting hit the news and everyone in New York regardless of what you did or where you were, knew that the final deliberation for the counts of murder faced by someone in law enforcement who was supposed to help put killers away was being held today and that the verdict could go either way.

"Can you not do that?" she asked as he came in and dumped his briefcase on the table. "Please? Can we have it be an unwritten rule or something? Let's not scare Avri like that again?"

Her Dad took her in, her expression which she knew must be something in between terrified and angry no matter how hard she tried to hide it and the way she was clutching at her laptop as if it could be used as some sort of weapon and then seemed to understand in that all-encompassing way that only parents did seem to understand.

"Ok" he said softly. "But I won a massive case today and I wanna take the number one girl in my life out for dinner, so go put on something nice and that red lipstick that you think I don't know you brought back from Paris and I will take you out. Come on…" he said upon seeing her expression.

"I promise you it will be your choice. We can even go French if that's what you want though why I don't know if your, sick of that or not"

Avri paused before she said something that she might regret but then she decided that she and her Dad had not had a lot of time to catch up and she wanted desperately to tell him about Paris, to go back to normal no matter what happened or what had happened, she wanted to tell him about the decisions that she had come to in the city where the lights seemed to sparkle without ever dimming out and a part of her wanted to ask what was going on between him and Liv.

Finally, she unclenched her hands and put the laptop down. "Sushi?" she asked finally. "Not had some decent Sushi in a while"

Her Dad grinned at her. "Shushi it is" he said beaming.

Avri stood up and moved around him to go to her bedroom. "I suppose now is as good a time as ever to ask you about an all-expenses paid trip to Europe for my eighteenth."

"Dream on sweetheart" was shouted back and Avri smiled as she shut the door behind her.

Finally, it seemed, things were looking up and maybe…just maybe they were going back to normal.

* * *

 **Hopefully the next update will be up sooner rather than later. **


	18. Where Bluebirds Fly

**Hi, so here is another chapter-this deals with the episode 17x05 and i tried to deal with it as seriously as i could while interjecting a little bit of humour into the story. We have only seven more chapters of this story left and while some of them might be based on episodes do be prepared for a lot of jumping around.**

 **Disclaimer-Nothing is mine.**

 **Please Read and Review**

* * *

Prosecutor's Daughter

Chapter 18-Where Bluebirds Fly

* * *

It was not the phone call that woke Avri from her bed that night-or perhaps it might have been morning she was honestly unsure even looking back, it was however the sound of her Dad swearing in Spanish and the banging of the door. So she forced herself out of bed and into the hallway her whole body screaming at her that she needed to go back into the warmth and sleep especially as the weather was getting colder and the workload for school what with the new school year was getting more and more intense as the year increased.

"What happened?" she asked rubbing a hand across her face as she took in her Dad standing there in his jeans and a shirt he had just thrown on. "Something happen with Liv?"

"Yeah you could say that" her Dad said brushing past her to the coffee pot and Avri decided to go make some because in the state he was in it was more than likely her father would end up burning himself to cap everything else off and that was the last thing that she needed at this time in the morning.

"What's happened now" she said passing him a cup and he drank it black straight from the mug not even bothering with the scalding heat of it and it was that if nothing else that made her snap straight awake.

"Dad?"

"You remember the rapist that Liv and the gang have been tracking? The one who was raping women in their homes? Well they caught a fresh trail and went out after him all of the NYPD practically after the suspect and they shot him but it seems he wasn't armed and he was black"

"Shit" Avri said. You didn't have to be in socially active to know that if that happened then this city was going to be like kindling waiting for the match to strike. She sighed and her Dad caught her expression and laughed once without any humour.

"Yeah, so I've got a family and a community claiming that the boy did nothing wrong, three cops who claim they saw a weapon when there doesn't seem to be any and of course Liv who doesn't have a clue weather or not she has a rapist still on the loose. Look go back to bed ok. I've got to get down there and see how this things turns out especially if this kid dies on the table and the cops refuse to answer questions. Look go to school and come back home. I don't know what's gonna happen and I don't want you in the crosshairs. Promise me Avri"

"Yeah, ok I promise, just take care of yourself Dad" Avri said shaking her head and then her Dad with a quick kiss to her head was gone and she was left alone standing in her kitchen and feeling very cold and it had nothing to do with the weather.

She moved to the TV and flicked on the news and then after a second's pause when to get her duvet and pillow. There was no way that she was going to get back to sleep now and anyway, she wanted to see what was going on. This could go one of two ways for her Dad and the way she was hoping despite the way it made her feel was that he would not have to put three cops on trial.

As she predicted however or at least how she knew-the whole TV channel news outlet was showing what was happening. She could see the PD swarming round and she had to say that from how it looked-with a guy cornered against the wall with what seemed like to her his hands up-it wasn't going to go well for Liv unless she could prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was the one that she was supposed to be hunting down and arresting.

Avri took a moment to take a deep breath and then she settled down coffee pot on the table to what felt like a very long night.

* * *

She was awoken the next morning by her alarm clock and she realised that she had fallen asleep in the living room meaning she had to run to get ready for school and more to the point she had to run to catch the subway. She was just getting her history book out of her locker when she turned and saw Zack Brightman leaning against the locker next to her with a somewhat serious expression and somehow Avri Barba knew that second that it was going to be a long, long day.

"Hey is your father gonna prosecute those cops for murder?"

"Murder? Christ Zack give me a second this morning this was just an accidental shooting and my Dad had like two hours of sleep. Where did you get murder from?"

"From the video" he sighed when he saw her somewhat clueless expression and held out his phone so Avri could see the video some of which she had seen last night and some of it she had not. She stared at the screen taking it in, in the middle of the hallway and there was a pause as she took it in in all it's horrific consequences.

"Fuck me" she said finally. Zack nodded slinging one arm around her and pulling her close that he was resting his head on top of her chin. "Yeah. Look I don't wanna tell you to tell your old man how to do his job babe but he gotta go after these cops. Man it is people like this that make all the good stuff the cops do look bad. They shot a black kid not much older than me-another black kid in the back. Something's gotta be done."

"I agree" Avri said surprising herself. "Look do…do you wanna come round after school and work on some homework? Then you might accidently be around when my father get's home and you could…I dunno…ask some questions"

"Barba" Zach said after a second "You are one crafty little genius"

"Yeah" Avri said grinning and then his kiss when it came down on her mouth was a soft as a feather.

* * *

Barba had, had a long day. He'd had such a long day that he was starting to call himself by his surname even in his own head and when he opened the door to his apartment he was so tired he just wanted to sink into his bed and weep at the universe.

First there had been the video oh, that had been good one and that had pulled the rug on him and had sent him to the DA's office to have a nice lengthy chat with Jack McCoy who was now gunning for the police with that glint in his eyes that was known throughout the entire DA's office as the glint that meant no good and then there was the conversation with Liv who was for some reason still defending her officers though why Rafael did not know and then to top of the brilliant day that he had been having (insert sarcasm just about here) and to top matters off there was added bonus of the protest right outside his office and the rapist still being on the loose. All in all there was a headache brewing that was making him almost dizzy and it was that, that took his attention at first before he realised that his daughter was not where she usually was-sat at the kitchen table or on the couch. Instead there was nothing, there was nothing in the apartment, no sound, no music or chatter nothing. The last time that had happened Avri had been curled into a ball because she didn't want to get out of bed because she was not sleeping because of the nightmares that William Lewis had left her with.

And that set his hackles rising. She had been doing so well and if she was taking a step back then he would have thought that she would ring him and let him know what was going on or if she needed help. She had done nothing-hell she had said nothing and none of this was sitting right with him.

"Avri you home?" he called out and then there was a thumb and some giggling which proved to Rafael that his daughter wasn't in the depths of despair at least.

There was another snort and then Avri was tumbling out of her bedroom her hair mused in her pyjama's giggling like some sort of lovesick schoolgirl. Which Avri supposed she was but there was still something slightly unnerving about the way she looked and then—and then someone came out of the door and saw he suddenly wished that he had not gotten out of bed this morning.

It was a boy. He was tall, African American and clearly some kind of sports player. He didn't look too out of sorts but judging by Avri's rather guilty expression and the rather lovesick smile the two of them were sporting as well as the added knowledge of what he had once upon a time been doing as a teenager (as well as what he had continued doing in Avri's absence though she didn't need to know that) and then there was a pause where they stood there the three of them.

"Dad this is Zach, Zach my Dad. Err…we were just…studying and I didn't hear you come home"

Just studying his backside Rafael thought bitterly to himself, Zach had the look of a boy who knew he was about to get lucky and his daughter had that look of a lovesick teenager. It was disconcerting. He had wanted her to be happy but now he was confronted with the idea of what teenage happiness looked like suddenly the whole pre-Lewis of not having any friends or social life was looking rather appealing.

But he was tired, too tired to start a conversation with his daughter about boys and sex and the pro's and con's of the justice system and weather or not he was going to put three cops who might have been only doing their job for all he knew on trial and risk the ire of the entire NYPD. All of that could wait until the morning, the talk that for some reason he thought he was immune to as well as the other talk that he would have to have with Olivia when he told her he was sticking three of the cops she had worked with on trial.

"Hello Zack" was all he said. "I don't mean to be rude but can we have this conversation in the morning. Do you err…do you have a lift home or?"

Zack (and maybe there was hope for this man after all) seemed to realise that Rafael was on the very cusp of loosing his temper and nodded. Or perhaps Rafael thought darkly, the kid knew he was never going to get this opportunity again.

Oh that was apparently the wrong thing to say even in his head because it conjured up all the wrong images.

He nodded either way and he kissed Avri on the head as he walked past Rafael with a mutter of "See you at school babe" and ew…just ew. Rafael was just about to tell him how ugh it really was (since when was his baby girl a babe?) and then he paused. He was prosecuting three people for shooting a kid just like Zach and it was that that made him reach into his wallet.

"Zach" he said passing the bills into his hand. "Get a cab it's late"

Zach looked at the money in his hand and then looked at Avri and then he grinned once, showing off his teeth and he did have good teeth Rafael noticed. He dithered at the doorway as if he wanted to ask him something but then he was gone before he could say anything else and that just left him and his daughter in the hallway.

"I don't wanna know, at least not tonight we can talk more in the morning it's just…it's been a long day and I don't wanna talk about it"

"Are you sticking those cops on trial?" Avri asked. "Because you should" she said quickly. "I know it might be more complicated but Dad…they shot a kid in the back and don't say it might be an accident because you and the NYPD might be the only people who do think that, and public opinion is strong on stuff like that"

There was a pause as Rafael tried to think of a response. "Yes" he said finally. "Now go to bed and I will talk to you either in the morning or whenever this case clears whichever comes sooner."

Avri levelled him a long look and then nodded seeing the easy way out and turning back into her room. Rafael tried not to groan feeling the migraine growing stronger and stronger with each passing second. He just managed to get into bed and kick off his shoes before he fell asleep.

* * *

It was two days before he was able to come home properly again.

It was two days before he could speak to his daughter about the events of the night he had crashed her date.

It was two days before he managed to secure convictions for the three cops who were as Liv put it, 'following procedure'.

It was two days before the cop was shot in retaliation and the Mayor and Jack McCoy put their foot in it by making it worse with speeches that the cops were not going to believe.

And it was two days before the threats to him and his daughter started.

* * *

 **And there you go. I hope you enjoy this and i will try and have the next chapter up soon. **


	19. Threat Levels

**Hi, so here is another chapter and i hope you all enjoy it. Again this follows on from the following chapter and skips a few episodes focusing on the episode 17x09 which is Depravity Standard. I hope you all enjoy this and i will update as soon as i can.**

 **Disclaimer-Nothing is mine.**

 **Please Read and Review.**

* * *

Prosecutor's Daughter

Chapter 19-Threat Levels

* * *

Avri picked up the phone when she walked into the apartment only to be greeted again with the dial tone again. She put down the phone stared at it for a second and then shrugged. She had no idea who was cold calling her and her father but she didn't really care that much considering things had been…awkward since she had staggered out of bed with Zach Brightman to see her Dad standing in the hallway looking so tired he seemed barely able to stand.

She didn't find out until the next day that he had successfully brought charges to three of them and one had copped a deal. It had been the right thing to do Avri believed it and more to the point that video had, had the power to set the city alike in the ways that you only read about in the newspapers.

But that was when the cold calls had begun. When she had mentioned it to her father he shook his head and gave a half shrug and told her it would die down eventually. Avri wasn't sure if she believed him but like she had said it was awkward right now in her apartment because of the whole 'having a boy round without telling anyone' thing not that there had been any rules against that in the first place.

They had never really discussed that. Or the glaringly obvious which was sex. She knew the basics naturally. She knew the difference between sex and rape ands she also more importantly felt like she was ready for the next step. Perhaps not tomorrow but right now she felt like Zack was the one that she wanted to have sex with. Did she love him? She wasn't sure. But she did like him more than a lot and that night where the two of them had gone from waiting for her Dad, to her bedroom to study to studying each other's bodies so to speak she had felt completely comfortable with him in a way she had not done in a long time.

Right now her Dad was embroiled in an ugly case that involved what she thought was a child murderer. She could tell it was bad because he never talked about this one and Avri who by now recognised the warning signs didn't ask. There was a pause where she had decided not to flick onto her social media. The last thing she wanted to do before thanksgiving when she would spend her time stuffing her face with turkey (and other Cuban delicacies that her grandmother would make) was imagine in her dreams (or nightmares) the last few minutes a child who right now would be her age or near about had gone through before he had died.

She was re-working her history essay before she sent it in when the door opened and her Dad stormed in.

"Bad day?" she asked quietly. She got nothing from him other than a grunt and then Avri decided to bite the imaginary bullet and ask the question. God knows why she was running towards this conversation, but she was going to do it anyway.

"Do you wanna talk about Zack?" she asked finally. "Look I know we never…talked about boys or anything—" she all but cringed at the thought but she managed to soldier on regardless. "Look I get you might have some…concerns especially after—after" she finished lamely not able to say Lewis name of dwell on what had happened that day, but she finished quietly as her Dad stood over the table resting one hand on the edge of the chair.

"I want to talk to you about this" he said finally. "I want to Avri I do but…right now is not the best time. There is—a lot of stuff going on, stuff that I don't want to talk about but there is—this case is worse than I thought it was. The man who murdered a child is claiming Olivia forced him to confess and then there is the fact that the jury is split right before thanksgiving which is never good and I owe this woman Avri…it was before your time but she's a single parent who was working and her kid just went to school and never came home, she speaks Spanish you know and she looked at me when I told her the only deal I could get was seven years like she would take this if it meant that she could find a tiny bit of justice and…I dunno. Just got me thinking. Look we can talk, believe me we need to talk about the boy…but I need my head clear before I do so let's just get over this blasted holiday"

And with that he turned and walked down the hallway leaving Avri to lean back on the couch feeling utterly exasperated with men weather they be related to her or not.

* * *

Rafael had been sat staring at the desk and the half scotch on it for a long time before the door opened and Olivia slipped through. She took one look at him and knew enough to simply pour herself a glass and sit down and wait for him to talk. This case had been long and it was still not over. Now with the second boy's parents prepared to let him talk there was still a chance that they could get to him but there was a long trial ahead after the holidays and Rafael knew that it was going to be another long trial and another kid that was put through the ringer.

And that wasn't even getting into the bizarre events that were happening at home. The threats that had come when the cops had finally been indicted had been on his mind. They were just cold calls but Avri had picked a couple more of them up each time and there was only so much he could take before his daughter figured out that something was wrong and the last thing Avri deserved or needed was to be worried about another monster that could strike at any moment. His daughter had done so well when it came to overcoming her emotions and her demons in the aftermath of Lewis and he didn't have the heart to tell her that there might be another threat coming that she didn't know about. The thought of the grin that was on her face whenever she was happy nowadays disappearing was too much.

This would be the burden that he would carry for the time being. Avri had the chance to enjoy her life right now and he was her father, her parent and he was going to give her the chance to live a normal life even if it came at the expense of many sleepless nights to himself.

And he sure as shit wasn't telling Liv. At least not until it got really bad. He would never hear the end of it otherwise and it would really get back to Avri then.

"How's Rollins?" he asked.

"Baby's out of the incubator so that's gotta be a good thing. And she decided on a name too. Jessie"

"My mother's already cooking things for her" Rafael said over the scotch. "Say's its no good for a new mother to be trapped in a hospital eating hospital food over thanksgiving"

Liv laughed and then watched him out of the corner of her eye.

"What's going on?" she said in that patient tone of hers.

"Avri had a boy over the other night and they were not studying"

There. He had gone with the lesser of the two evils. Or had he? Yep, there was his headache again.

Liv, the traitor started laughing.

"Good for her" she said finally. "It's about time she had some fun. Let me guess, it's the boy that had her looking all how did you put it? Ah yes, dreamy in Paris"

The look on his face told her what he thought of that statement.

"My threat level has increased" He deadpanned.

Liv laughed again.

"Rafa it's just a boy. Go and tell her that she's not allowed to do anything without telling you in your house and then make sure she's protected and then call it a day. I promise you it's not as hard as it looks"

Rafael closed his eyes for a long moment and tried not to imagine Avri staggering out of her bedroom with her hair all rumpled looking like every teenage boy's filthy minded wet dream and when he opened them he found Liv looking at him with that soft look on her face that meant…well everything on the darker days like this. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her what was going on but he couldn't find the words.

Instead he just finished his scotch.

* * *

It had been during the holidays that her Dad brought it up.

"Are you sleeping with this…Zack…and by sleeping I mean are you having sex?"

Avri looked up from where she was making her tea and stared at him for a second, then she put the coffee cup down and sat at the table.

"No" she said finally.

"But you want to" Rafael said. It wasn't a question.

Avri sighed. "I don't know" she said finally. "I do like him a lot he makes me feel safe and…normal I guess"

"That's not a reason to have sex for the first time" he said finally. Avri shrugged. "I know, I'm not saying that's what I want to do but…I like him a lot Dad, I like talking to him and I like hanging out with him. He makes me feel special and safe and I would like to have sex with him one day—I can see myself having sex with him anyway. And the other night. I swear he just came over because he wanted to know what was going to with the cops and then we were waiting for you in the living room and then…" she trailed off looking down at her hands but Rafael could see the look on her face. Typical he thought to himself that his ex should get all the fun stuff when Avri was small and her concern was nothing but finger painting or whatever but that was nothing compared to what he had, had to deal with in the year and a half his daughter had been living with him.

"Ok" he said finally. "Are you prepared for that…for when…look are you protected?"

"Yes. My school provides emergency contraception and Mom put me on birth control before she went to London. Don't ask me why she heard or she read somewhere that girls as young as fifteen were having sex and she wanted me protected, it was pointless but you know what she's like. After Lewis I just went to the free clinic and took care of it myself. It was so clinical it was easy to keep the emotions out of it"

Rafael nodded silently factoring away what she was telling him so that he could ring his ex whenever he felt like truly depressing himself to ask why she had thought sticking his then underage daughter on birth control was a good idea some other time.

There was a pause where the two of them stared at each other and then he spoke again.

"I don't want to come back and find you doing anything here. If you want to have sex then there's nothing I can do to stop you but I don't want to see it or hear it more's the point. If you want Zack round then you have to keep him in the living room where I can see you and I don't want him round here all the time when I'm working late and Avri I don't want to have to give you the lecture on STD's so if…you...just please make sure that he's is…ugh"

"Yeah I got it Dad" Avri said biting her lip. "I wont do it again without speaking to you. Now can I call him?"

"Yeah sure but not to late ok? Last thing I need is the phone bill increasing and the conversations ending at like three in the morning. It is a school night."

Avri nodded and then disappeared off into her bedroom leaving Rafael at the table wondering how this was her life.

Was it wrong really, he thought as he got ready for bed that night. That he looked at a seventeen year old boy and his immediate thought was that the girl who he had never really had a chance to be a parent too was growing up way to fast and all he could think of was that the threat levels in his mind, had just risen a little bit more than they had done this morning.

* * *

 **And there is only six more chapters left of this story so i hope you enjoy this one and the ones that follow. **


	20. Heavy Is The Head

**Hi, so here is another chapter and there is only five more chapters left of this story. I know from this chapter in terms of the threats that Barba receives but with five chapters left to go i do want to wrap up this story and not in the way that Season 17 did**

 **Disclaimer-Nothing is mine just Avri**

 **Please read and review**

* * *

Prosecutor's Daughter

Chapter 20-Heavy Is The Head.

* * *

Avri was sat reading in Starbucks waiting for Zack to appear when the barista, a girl her own age or near about placed the cup of coffee in front of her. Avri blinked, tearing her eyes away from her paperback that she had to read for English Lit class and turning to the girl. The coffee seemed to be legit and it stank of caramel which Avri supposed out of all of the favourite syrups in the world that was the favourite.

"I didn't order this" She said finally and the girl nodded and then pointed to the table opposite. Avri caught the eye of a man with shaved hair and a rather—dangerous look about him before he had wrapped his coat around him and disappeared. Avri shot a strange look at the girl who shrugged. "He's not your boyfriend is he?" she asked and Avri shook her head. The girl shrugged again. "I can take the coffee back if you want" She said finally. "I can get rid of it. You'd be surprised at how many creeps we get like that"

"It's free coffee" Avri said finally. The girl grinned at her and then moved on to take some more mugs back to the counter. Avri swallowed the coffee and then she turned back to the book and when Zack showed up ten minutes later with his smile and his dimples she found she forgot all about the strange man that she had sworn she had seen somewhere before and his mysterious coffee.

* * *

The next day was Saturday and Avri had it off school, she had planned to go and see Rollins and baby Jessie but her Dad had told her that Rollins was still recovering from emergency surgery and was only just back at work—plus she had other things to do that were demanding her attention. She was attempting to find a job where she could work a couple of days a week and earn some money because she suspected that soon enough her Dad would not be up for supping her much longer. There was something strange about the way he was behaving right now. He was acting…strange. Avri knew he was embroiled with a horrible 'He-Said, She-Said' case of two students who went to the opposing school that she went too—therefore it was all over her school. She didn't know the details, nor did she want to. She didn't want to imagine what it must be like to prosecute a case like that especially as her Dad's old friend Rita was pushing the prosecution and Avri knew that there were text messages at the very least. God only knows the mood that would put her father in.

Avri had been sat in her bedroom pouring over a copy of Jane Austen's Persuasion which she was supposed to do her midterm essay on. She was paused reading when the door opened and then slammed shut. Then there was the sound of someone throwing something against the wall and Avri decided to pop her head out of the room and just double check that—you know they weren't being broken into again.

It was her father pacing up and down muttering to himself. He looked…actually looking at him he looked quite unwell. He looked like he had not slept in several weeks and she was sure he was thinner. He looked up when he saw her leaning against the wall and she noticed that while he managed a smile at her it was not the usual one he gave her. It was sharper and Avri looked at him and knew instinctually that this was not about this case but about something bigger and more dangerous. She could feel the curdling in her stomach grow with each passing second. That was the look that he had used in abundance when she had been in that dark deep hole that had been the immediate aftermath of William Lewis. That was her Dad's look of pretending for her sake that all was ok when it really wasn't.

"Everything ok?" she asked quietly. Her Dad paused as if he was mentally debating weather or not he wanted to bring up whatever was bothering him. He looked like he desperately needed to talk to someone and Avri wondered weather or not he was talking to Liv. She had not mentioned Liv or whatever it was that was going on between the two of them up since the day that Amaro had left and she wasn't sure how much she wanted her Dad to know. She did acknowledge even to herself though that she had been honest about her relationship (if you were going to call it that) and her father had not.

"Yeah" he said finally. Avri raised an eyebrow. "It's hard sometimes" her Dad said hurriedly. "When I work a case and sometimes I see you. I see a kid like you that may or may not have made a mistake. He Said, She Said's are a nightmare on a good day and the problem is I have a hard time finding a guilty party which means the jury will and I don't—ugh I hate stuff like this. Cases like the one with Lewis or with Johnny D are easy because you know in your whole body that they are evil and need to be put away. Anything like this is incredibly difficult. Not to mention I have Rita breathing down my neck and an equally divided squad room."

Avri knew that wasn't it, at least not the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. But he looked so tired and so beaten down that she didn't have the heart to call him out on his lie. Perhaps this was something as simple as the fact that her Dad needed a holiday.

"Maybe when Easter comes around you should go away. Take a little time for yourself? Go see some part of the world. I know when I went to Paris I came back feeling…"

"Dreamy" her Dad cut across from her with an eyeroll and a smile that was a bit more normal.

"Rejuvenated" Avri said rolling her eye back at him with a smile that she knew was real.

"Yeah" her Dad said finally. "Maybe, hey have those cold callers stopped?"

"I think so also there seems to be no mail in your name? Tell me are you getting it delivered to the office?"

"Well I seem to be living there at the minute" he said finally not looking up from where he was checking his email.

"Hey tomorrow after you close your argument's how about I meet you in your office and we can go and get some lunch. Either celebrate or commiserate"

"Sounds good" her Dad said not looking up from his phone.

"Yeah" Avri said as she moved back to her bedroom. "And maybe I can get a beer with you as well"

"Nice try" came the yell back and Avri grinned to herself as she shut the door.

* * *

Carmen was the one who let her into the office with a smile. Avri sat down folding her legs under her in her Dad's desk. He really did have a nice chair she surmised. It was all dark leather and really good on the back. She liked sitting behind the desk because even though she was sixteen for a few fleeting seconds she might to a passer-by exert some kind of power but she knew enough to know that she wasn't sure if she wanted a career like the one her Dad had.

She believed that she would be a good lawyer but she had seen the toll that being a prosecutor brought. She had seen the headaches and the migraine tablets hidden away next to the coffee pot that always seemed to be in use. There had been the late nights and the times she had been alone and then of course underpinning all of that there was the still faint but powerful memory of William Lewis who she suspected had gone after her because he had looked at her father and looked at her and thought of another way to screw the prosecutor and Olivia Benson. Avri knew she didn't want that, she didn't want anything to do with that. She wanted a career where the stress levels were minimum. Not where you had to deal with kids her own age like the one her Dad was prosecuting right now who for all she knew might have been confused and working off what the social circles wanted these days or who might really be guilty.

Her knee clad in her green playsuit and flesh-covered tights banged against the draw that was closest to her and she swore as it was knocked open. It was a thin draw designed to be hidden under the actual desk and had a lock and key. If her father had left the thing open then it was clear that this case had been screwing him up.

A stack of papers fell to the ground along with photos and Avri started in the seat as she saw the photos of her, at school, with Zack, walking around New York, there were dozens of them and of her father. There were notes attached and she had saw that her father had dated them probably with the time that they had arrived. She read them growing more and more impatient and more and more angry to tell the truth. It was becoming clearer and clearer as she worked her way through the messages, the cold calls at the apartment and probably at the office and then…of course…the strange man in the Starbucks who had given her a coffee.

Nobody had been that invested in her from that distance. They had been there looking for her. And judging by the dates that were attached to the letters and the photos this had started months ago, in fact…this looked like it had started around the time that her father had tackled that cop killing case, when he had caught Zack and her in her bedroom.

She was going to kill him.

After everything with Lewis he would keep something this dangerous from her again. There was a pause where she sat there and then slowly she gathered all of the threats and the notes and the theorising and she put them back in the draw.

She needed to think about this calmly. If she went by anger then chances are she would blow up like a volcano and that was the last thing that either one of them needed right now. She had to think through a plan and get some more people on side because she suspected that if Olivia Benson knew anything about what was going on then she would hit the roof like a firework.

Despite everything she had thought about Olivia Benson in the past she knew that she cared for her Dad and right now she needed an ally that would understand the danger. If she was being honest with herself she needed an ally that had been in that room with her with Lewis and Olivia was the only one.

* * *

Later that night she sat in her loose flannel pj bottoms and her blush sleep top and she played with her phone twirling it in her hand again and again debating just what she was going to do. Heavy is the head that lies the crown she thought to herself putting in her passcode. She couldn't live through another incident like Lewis again being used because she was the prosecutor's daughter or for another reason. She could not live through that again.

Nor could she lose her Dad. Her Dad who seemed determined to pretend that nothing was wrong. She bit her lip again and then pressed the call button thanking the heavens for the small mercy of that once this case was over he had taken a shower, forced something down himself and then fallen into bed. It wasn't just him for herself it was for him too.

At least that was what she was going to tell herself so she put the phone to her ear and waited until the person on the other end picked up.

"Avri hey I just got Noah to bed, everything ok?"

"Olivia" she said cutting across the chatter. "It's Dad. I really need your help"

* * *

 **And i will try and update as soon as i am able too. **


	21. Northern Friends

**Hi, so here is another chapter, this one deals with the Chicago PD crossover in Season 17-the last three chapters will deal with the Church plot, the conclusion of the threats against Barba and possibly the death of Mike Dodds who I actually like so who knows? I might keep him alive. This story will end though with a happy ending.**

 **Disclaimer-Nothing is mine just Avri.**

 **Please Read and Review.**

* * *

Prosecutor's Daughter

Chapter 21-Northern Friends.

* * *

The weeks after she had told Liv had been…uncomfortable to say the least. Her Dad had not been speaking to her about…anything. Avri was pretty sure that he didn't know what was going on or that she had been told that she had been the one who had informed his kind of girlfriend (because who knew what the hell that relationship was because Avri sure as hell didn't) that he was being threatened and probably stalked by some lunatic on any case she would have heard about it by now.

Olivia on the phone had listened to Avri's concerns and then shown up the next morning telling her slightly bemused father that she was taking Avri to brunch. Avri had started—she had been ungainly dressed in her loose sweats and her sports bra with her glasses and she had not been ready for Olivia to come to her doorstep and wait for her to get dressed and make up her face. Eventually they were at some small café in the middle of New York and she was pretending that all was ok.

She got however a delightful smoked salmon omelette with some toast and a decent coffee out of it so Avri was not complaining. Olivia insisted she pay for everything and when she found out what the cost of the omelette was Avri was more than happy to accommodate her.

"Alright" Liv said when she was working her way through her omelette. "I am going to order a wire-tap on your Dad's home phone just to make sure that everything is caught and then when I have definite proof I will confront him about what's going on. In the meantime, I'm gonna ask you to let me handle it. I know that you wanna help Avri but please let me handle this. If you see anyone strange then let me know and I promise you I will let you know the minute that we catch this guy and I will catch this guy"

Avri took a mouthful of coffee and then stirred in some more sugar. She ran her spoon across the coffee and then Olivia spoke again. "Look, I know every instinct that you have is telling you to protect your Dad but let me assure you that this is only going to end well if you let me handle it. I will speak to your Dad and then I will take steps and ensure that he never knows the tip-off came from you"

Avri supposed that that was best. That was her only option anyway and as the days turned into weeks and she learnt to hide away in her room or in her apartment and learnt to look over her shoulder when she walking, in case she saw the same man she had seen in Starbucks. She had learnt as the weather (typical New York weather) got colder and colder that the stalker was the least of her problems.

* * *

She forced herself to wrap up warm one day after school. The apartment was cold and her Dad was working and even so they had not been speaking much and so she came back from school, wrapped herself up warm, poured herself a sneaky glass of wine as some sort of teenage rebellion (because really did she have to be nice when her Dad was clearly being so rude to her even though he didn't have a reason—at least that he knew about) and then she sat down wrapped in her blankets and prepared to spend her time watching old Jane Austen movies online when their was a knock at the door.

She started at little and then she stood up moving slightly in the cold weather as she peered through the peep hole. She did not open the door until she checked and then she opened the door when she saw the newest member of the SVU team. The greenest (and the most good looking member of the team if she was being honest with herself) member of the team was Mike Dodds the son of the boss of Olivia if Avri was remembering the higher arch of the SVU right.

"Tell me nobody got shot?" she said instantly upon opening the door and Mike Dodds smiled at her which might have distracted her If it wasn't for the fact that his hand was hovering around his gun as if he expected a criminal to drop from the ceiling breathing down fire. Avri paused reaching for her jacket half prepared to run after him in the direction of the nearest cop car because she was alone in the middle of the night and a cop on her doorstep was only going to complicate matters. She bit her lip again as Mike Dodd's eyes widened as if he had never contemplated with her history what showing up on her doorstep looking like the worst was about to happen would mean to her.

"No…err…you remember Greg Yates? The man who killed the friend of the Chicago PD department and his roommate the M.E that murdered his fiancé all those months ago?"

At Avri's nod he continued.

"We—err, Liv, your Dad and me we went up to the prision with Chicago PD to interview him and it turns out that both of them used the distraction to escape."

Avri blinked at him and then the sudden feeling of her stomach sinking at her and then she leaned against the doorway as she tried to keep the fear in her voice. There had been another prisoner once who had escaped and she knew that there was no way that she could live through that again.

"Your Dad he sent me to get you and take you back to SVU. He would have come himself but as you can imagine the Chicago lot have not taken the news well and he's busy co-ordinating the search. I was taken off to get you but I gotta be back out there so I was wondering if you could grab some stuff so we can hurry up and be back there?"

He phrased it as a question but Avri knew enough to know that it really wasn't. She paused for a second and then she nodded letting Mike Dodds into her apartment and reaching for her laptop, her book and a change of clothes and then she was out the apartment her hands trembling a little as she tried to lock the door shut and trying desperately to pretend that there wasn't two escapee's on the loose both of whom her father had put away. Avri could not do this again. If someone had a grudge on her father then she was going to be safely behind closed doors protected by hundreds if not thousands of cops and behind what she hoped was bullet proof glass.

If Mike Dodds knew what had happened between her and William Lewis then he didn't let on, Avri didn't know how much the golden boy knew about her, either way he didn't comment on the fact that her hands were curled into fists on her lap in order to stop them from shaking.

The entire squad room was filled with cops. There were uniforms for each and every district in New York and more than a few other states were involved. Hell it looked like half of Chicago was involved. Avri slipped into Liv's office and sat down pulling out her laptop and deciding it would be best to do a bit of work while the world went to hell. She still had homework and she was actually enjoying some of the classes she had to sit this year especially since there was no mass murderer haunting her dreams this time around. However the work she was doing was interrupted when Erin Lindsey smashed open the door as if the world was about to end (nearly causing Avri to drop her newly brewed coffee all over her laptop) and then looked around desperately as if she expected to see Greg Yates hiding in the corner with his gun out. Avri rolled her eyes righting herself.

"I don't know why you think that's the right attitude to have at this very minute. A mass lunatic is on the run and you wanna sit and have a coffee and pretend that nothing has happened?"

Avri paused for a second raising her eyebrow.

"This isn't my first lunatic you know" she said coolly. Erin Lindsey scoffed and Avri had to bite down on her lip before she did something desperately stupid like hitting a decorated Chicago PD Detective.

"I was held captive last year by William Lewis. And if you don't know who that is I suggest you go look him up before you come into Liv's house acting like the Queen wondering if you're the only one whose taking this seriously."

Erin turned to her, her face taught with anger and Avri was half on her feet to meet her and fully prepared to smack her one (she had a long right hook she new that) when the door opened and she saw Jay Halstead open it. He looked between Erin and her, grimaced and then Erin flounced off and Avri sat back down her legs crossed and turned to her laptop. Jay Halstead dithered for a second and then he turned around and disappeared as well. She kicked off her shoes and then she laid down on the couch and put her laptop on the ground and then despite all the hustle and bustle and panic going on around them she tucked her jacket under her and then she fell asleep.

* * *

When she awoke it was dark outside and she sat up suddenly wincing at the dizziness that came when you sat up too soon. Her Dad was sat in the corner going over the files. He looked as tired as Avri felt. She was going to have to talk to Olivia about her couch because it was not as comfortable as it looked. She pushed off her own jacket and what looked like her Dad's jacket and she ran a hand through her hair wincing as her fingers tugged on knots.

"Did we get them?" she asked before she remembered that there was no 'We' in this. She wanted nothing to do other than to go home and crawl beneath the covers and sleep the year away rather than live here trapped like a fish in a bowl wondering if the next William Lewis was around the corner.

"We got one" Her Dad said not looking up from the file. "But we don't have Greg Yates. Evidence shows he's taking the fight to Chicago. Dodds was shot in the arm but he's going to be ok and our Northern Friends have gone back home to try and sort out the mess. Olivia is sending a couple of detectives with them but God knows when this mess is gonna be sorted out."

"Can we go home?" Avri asked wincing as her neck gave a crick.

Her Dad nodded putting down his file. "But it's early so if you hang around for a couple of hours then I will take you to breakfast." He caught Avri's unamused look and passed her a jumper and she put it on snuggling into the warmth and she knew the look she passed her Dad was not polite. He grinned at her and she rolled her eyes once in response.

"I want somewhere we decent coffee and decent eggs" she said finally.

"I'll take you to that steak house that does the good scrambled eggs with the buttermilk" her Dad said finally grinning at her. Avri rolled her eyes and then she reached for her boots.

"Is Liv gonna come with us?"

"Why do you want Liv to come with us?" he asked finally. Avri blinked. Her initial response was that because Liv and he were obviously together but she bit down on that response because she didn't know if it was true.

"Because she's your friend. And she spoke to you recently? Cause I'm gonna guess that's why your in a mood with her?" she said finally. Avri thought that she was just bullshitting her way through a conversation but in all honestly her Dad seemed to be going with what she was saying rather than worrying about it. She shuddered a little at the look on his face.

"Olivia and I are not speaking. She's—well—I don't want to worry you but she's found out some things—nothing that will bother you of that I can assure you but she stuck her nose into something I was trying to handle and right now with everything that is going on—" he cut himself off abruptly and Avri knew she should tell him that it was her that had told Liv that he had been getting threats but she just couldn't find a way around the words.

"Come on" her Dad said holding out his hand "Let's go to breakfast"

And they did because Avri didn't want to interrupt the trust that had erupted between the two of them even as she tried to shake that terrible feeling that she had, had before, that something was coming out of the woodwork, much like William Lewis and much like Lewis would ultimately leave her reeling without a lifeline and wondering where the next hit was going to come from.

* * *

 **And let me know what you think the next chapter will be up soon. Enjoy.**


	22. Two Truths And A Lie

**Hi, so here is another chapter. Only three more left and for anyone wondering yes this story will have a happy ending, for ALL characters. The next chapter will tie up this threat arc something that was woefully ignored on the show and will have Rafael's point of view.**

 **Disclaimer-Nothing is mine.**

 **Please Read and Review**

* * *

Prosecutor's Daughter

Chapter 22-Two Truths And A Lie.

* * *

Avri winced as she heard the sound of the door slamming shut. She had been awake despite the early hour as she had been unable to sleep. The rain was pouring down the apartment in droves and she had spent most of her time listening to the pitter patter of it on the window while she worked on some particularly on some nasty biology work which she might have left for a long time as she didn't want to tackle it.

She was just chewing on her pencil when her Dad came in and she started looking up tucking a strand of hair behind her ear as if had fallen out of his messy bun, because if she was being honest she had not heard him leave. There was a pause where she stood there wondering if she wanted to open the door. Her Dad had been strapped to the wire again this week when it turned out that one of the people that worked for the Police Commissioner had been caught red handed with child porn. The fact that his wife worked for the same organisation that was supposed to protect children from this and he had been using these photos in the same house his children were staying in made it all the more sickening and Avri had no trouble not going to this courtroom and instead trying to focus on pulling up her science grades from C- to at least a C+. More than that and she was sure she was going to need a miracle.

Instead she decided to go and see what the problem was especially when she heard the tell tale sign of the phone ringing something she found that she was flinching which was getting worse. This couldn't go on and more to the point she had to sleep without wondering what was on the other end of the phone and she paused and then padded into the living room. Her Dad was sat on the couch looking like he had just aged five years in five minutes and Avri took a seat next to him on the couch curling her legs up from under him.

"Who was on the phone?" she asked finally.

"Nobody" was the token reply. Avri scoffed, she couldn't help it, this was getting ridiculous and more to the point it was getting dangerous. She didn't know what the hell was going on but she was seriously struggling to keep her peace of mind. The feeling that she had felt since the Chicago detectives had shown up with their whirlwind presence was still there, the itching under her skin that something terrible was wrong and now she was not going to hide it. She could still feel sometimes when her mind got really dark and the air around her got very still—the feel of that rope on her wrists and the blood dripping down her chin.

"I know you've been getting threats" she said finally. "I know about the cold callers, and the photos in your desk draw and the man that's been following you because he was following me. And I told Liv. I told her because you weren't and the last time someone you prosecuted had a grudge they came after me. And I cannot live with that again and I cannot live without you so if you wanna be mad at someone be mad at me"

Her Dad turned to her then and then he looked as if he was trying to figure out what to say to her. Avri waited for him to yell at her but he stood up and reached for the wine bottle on the table. He grabbed two mugs and brought it back to the couch and poured two generous helpings of red wine—the same red wine that she had drank oh so long ago when he had first told her that he wanted her to stick around, that she could stay.

"I thought we had rules, both against me drinking and against drinking sixty dollars' worth of wine in mugs"

Her Dad snorted taking a deep gulp and Avri took a sip. "Are you mad at me?" she asked finally. Her Dad smiled once though it was full of self-loathing.

"No" he said finally. "I'm not. I suppose I should have told you but you were doing so well…I didn't want to ruin that for you. I didn't want you to worry that much. I wanted you to go out and live your life and not look over your shoulder"

"When did they start?"

"The day I put the cops on trial for the shooting of that kid everyone thought was the rapist. The night that the cop got shot in retaliation. The night I found you with Zack, two days after that they started and that's too much of a coincidence for me. I didn't want to tell Liv because I knew that she would blow this out of proportion and in all honestly I don't know what cops I can trust right about now"

Avri took a small sip of wine and then she bit her lip for a second thinking hard over what had just been said.

"So now what?"

"Now we carry on as normal. Liv's been looking into it and she wants to have a protective detail on you and me. I refused but If you want it then by all means take it. I mean it Avri, I don't want you walking around and pretending that everything's ok when it isn't. I want you to feel safe and if some protection outside of the building does that for you then I will call Liv right now and get a car outside in the hour."

Avri shrugged a little. "I want you to do whatever it is that you want to do" she said finally. "I don't want you to fight with Liv, I know you think I don't see it but I do. I saw it the day her adoption of Noah came through, I saw you and her in the backroom"

Her Dad stiffened slightly next to her and then when he spoke it was with a curious edge to his voice. "Does that bother you? Me and her? I mean—if there was a me and Liv and I'm not saying there is—god knows she has enough on her plate with a toddler, and I'm not sure if I want to go down that route again but…would you object?"

Avri thought hard. She thought about William Lewis and the near rape and the hatred she had felt for Liv afterwards, the blame that she had placed on her door when she had woken up at nights her breath caught in her throat screaming into the night and the days where she would scrub herself raw in the shower trying to rid herself of some imaginary filth. She thought about the arguments they had had over cases that for whatever reason they had disagreed on and she thought about the time when she had known that Liv would help her out, the photo of Zack Brightman and certainly smoothing over that relationship with her Dad in the aftermath. She thought about the pros and cons to this and that included a toddler because she was not ready to be a big sister and if this relationship continued then Noah was going to start to look towards some sort of father figure.  
And she knew how she felt about that.

She tried to find some way that said she knew Liv's actions with Lewis had taken her to the edge of her sanity and beyond and yet she wholly understood how it had come to that. That she was thankful Liv was there but she wasn't sure if she needed a mother figure. And then of course underpinning all of this was the love that she felt for her Dad and the need that she had to make sure that he was happy and safe that she knew was reiterated. For every truth she had told there had always been a couple of lies attached to it and now she wanted to be honest. And honestly…  
"I'm fine with it" she said truthfully. And she was. Avri had, had a long time to get her head around something like this and the relationship was clearly so slow to burn that she would have time to spend with her Dad and Noah before they became one big happy family.

"And yes" she said finally. "I want a car outside of the block. At least when I'm alone and you have to work late"

Her Dad nodded finally reaching out and pulling her into his side and Avri curled her body around him even though she knew she was wrinkling his shirt.

"I'll keep you safe Avri" he said finally into her hair. "I promise you, I'm gonna keep you safe"

The sad thing was that Avri wasn't entirely sure if she believed him. Once upon a time she would have took him at face value and that would have been it. Now she knew better.

But that wasn't what he wanted to hear. Her father wanted to hear her say that she believed him so she did and was rewarded with one of those genuine smiles that were at the minute becoming all too rare.

* * *

That case and that conversation turned into another nightmare when later on that week her Dad took on the Catholic Church. Avri knew little and wanted to know little about what was going on. Her family were religious regardless even if she had let her faith slide a little (and her Dad had let it slide full stop) and she found cases like that as upsetting as her grandmother did. She had not gone to the court room either because she was unsure weather or not the person that had bought her the coffee and had stood there while she had looked him in the eye and she swallowed bitterly turning back to her coffee. It was her third one in an hour and her heart was doing jumping jacks in her chest with every noise that she could hear outside. The cop outside she was sure was Mike Dodds who was still on duty since he had been shot and that made Avri feel a little bit safer if not by much. At least he was someone she could trust even if she wasn't sure how quick he was going to be with his sore arm when or if (hopefully, if) he had to draw his gun.

She pulled her hands through her hair again and tried to focus on the page in front of her. Liv had been suspended, something about a conflict with an old flame—and Avri was going nowhere near that one. Her Dad was supposed to be home by now and he wasn't and Avri was suddenly very aware that he had requested protection for her not for himself. Suddenly in the dark recess of the living room it was becoming very difficult to breathe again.

It took her a second to realise that she was on the verge of a panic attack.

No scratch that—she was having a panic attack.

She was thinking even as she was struggling to breath that she needed to phone Mike who was downstairs but before she could even reach with trembling fingers for her phone the door to her apartment opened up and she felt someone drop something to the floor and hands cup her face. It was her Dad and she could vaguely hear him tell her to breathe.

She tried to listen to him and after a while the breathing…her breathing levelled out and she half fell from the chair into his lap taking shuddering breaths into his jacket as she trembled violently. She was muttering incoherently but something she said must have registered because she could hear faintly her Dad in the background saying into her hair.

"Don't worry darling, I'll make it stop, I'll protect you don't worry. Nothing is going to happen to you while I'm here"

Avri shuddered again feeling that threat out there that wanted her Dad dead and tried not to cry. Again there were two lies and one truth or two truths and one lie she didn't know. She didn't know what was truth and what wasn't anymore. All she knew was that she needed this feeling of unease to stop and that was only going to happen when the person who was behind these threats were caught and prosecuted.

If only she had known there and then, how soon that would be.

* * *

 **And there you go, I hope you enjoy this, I am hoping to have all these chapters and all other stories finished between now and uni starting so updates should be quick. **

**And let me know what you think.**


	23. See Something, Say Something

**Hi, so here it is, another chapter and this one concludes the arc that is the threat saga. The next chapter concludes season 17 and the final chapter is just a little epilogue. I hope you enjoy this and I will strive to update the final two chapters as soon as I can. **

**Disclaimer-Nothing Is mine just Avri.**

 **Also the person behind the threats is my own conclusion I think that was what they were hinting at in the final episodes was that the cops in the Season 17 Episode 5 were behind it and I chose the female detective because she seemed the most critical of Barba. But again all of this is fictional and my own ideas. **

**Please read and review.**

* * *

Prosecutor's Daughter 

Chapter 23-See Something, Say Something

* * *

He didn't know what he was doing. Nor did he have a clue but he had seen the dress in Avri's online shopping cart (he was not snooping but if she left the computer screen open as she went to take a shower she was desperate for him to buy it for her-that or he was spending way to much time after the difficult cases with Rita) the dress was black and white with a twist at the chest and Rafael did not feel bad added some strappy heals that he knew his daughter would love and then wrapping it up for her one day when she was staying late at school to work on a group English assignment.

It wasn't something that he was planning. Putting Avri in danger again was not something that he ever wanted to do but things had changed since her panic attack the previous week. He too was getting sick of looking over his shoulder the whole time and even Liv was struggling with the added pressure of asking cops to protect someone who six months ago had prosecuted three of their own. Carrisi and Dodds were the two assigned to Avri and most of the time Rafael knew that they went about their duty in a way that didn't intrude on his daughter but still…they couldn't do it forever regardless of weather or not Rafael trusted them and only them with the most precious thing in his life and he did.

He also knew the person who was after him quite well. His—girlfriend—no partner had enough information and footage of him to cobble together a decent look alike of who was stalking him but still…going out at night with his daughter was a proven method of driving the monster out and if that meant that he had to sit in a restaurant and pretend that everything was normal then that was what he was going to do.

But he knew enough to know that he owed Avri an explanation. He was not going to put his daughter in danger ever again unknowingly.  
"Ok" said Avri when she had finished dancing around the room when she had seen Rafael's gifts (that had left a dent in his wallet) "Why did you go designer for me? Are you dying?"

"No. But I do want to know if you want to work a sting with me?"

Avri looked up and nearly dropped her shoes in surprise as the words took effect.

"What?"

Rafael grinned feeling rather savage. "I have a plan to get this bastard once and for all. The people that are threatening us. And I wanted to know if you wanted to be there when we catch him."

"How?"

"He wants to get to me, like Lewis did—" he visibly struggled to say the name of the man who had almost destroyed his daughter and then he forced himself to carry on. "You are the easiest way to get to me. If he sees you with me then it's like gold to get to me. That's when Liv will swoop in and get him."

"How do you know what's going to happen? How do you know that's what's going to happen? How do you know he's even going to be watching us?"  
"Oh I know he is" he replied feeling confident. "I've had a long time to study this man Avri. I want this done and over with, if you don't want to come then that's fine, you don't have too but I am going to go out tonight and draw this bastard out. I want to know if you want to come with me"  
Avri paused clearly mulling it over in her head. "Fine" she said finally. "But if he comes near me I will not be held responsible for my actions. Also can we have sushi? That way I can use my chopsticks as a weapon if necessary. Also I really want tempura prawns tonight"

Rafael laughed once feeling a bit of relief when he spoke to her. He paused not trying to show how relieved her was that he didn't have to do this alone. While a part of him hated the thought of relaying on his teenage daughter as back up another part of him knew this justice was for her as well as for him. She had been a victim at least one time too many in his book and he was damn sure he was going to protect his daughter for as long as possible. Rafael knew he had not been the best father that Avri should have had, but now he was with her and he was raising her and she was his responsibility Rafael knew she was going to have the best and longest life he could ensure that she deserved.

If he gripped his daughters hand a little bit tighter as they went into the restaurant then he had only himself to blame.

* * *

"Look" Avri said in her new dress that had cost him more than a months salary. "He's not gonna turn up is he? This whole thing is gonna be for nothing. Not that I don't appreciate free sushi. But—" Rafael held out a hand and cut her off a second gently. He was trying to do it in the least significant way but Avri could see through it and he knew it. Thankfully she fell silent and he could catch Liv's eye from where she had been sitting so inconspicuously at the bar (in a way that nobody would have known she was there) because the man had just walked in. Leather jacket, shaved head and all.

Avri took a swig of water and looked at him with wide eyes. "He's, here isn't he?" she asked finally.

Rafael nodded reaching out to grab her hand. "He's three tables behind you. Olivia is at the bar she's gonna grab him as soon as she can get a clear shot at him. Don't look around or give any indication that you have seen him ok? I promise this is all gonna be over soon"

Avri nodded. "You were right" she said finally. "This would drive him out. The two of us together. We should have done it weeks ago"

Rafael reached out to squeeze her hand and Avri squeezed it back. Finally there was a pause where they sat there eating without really tasting and then Rafael heard it. There was another long pause and then there was the sound of glass shattering on the floor and Rafael knew without looking around that Liv had got him. Avri did turn her whole body contorting to see the man who had plagued them for months on the ground being handcuffed by Dodds and Carrisi. Liv came over to them beaming without a hair out of place-typical. She dragged a chair over from a concerned looking waiter and then sat down as if nothing had happened.

"We got him" she said finally. "Dodds can handle the interrogation and then when he's done we can find out who sent him and get them both sent down for a very long time."

And just like that it seemed it was over.

It couldn't be that simple could it?

"No" Avri said eating her prawns with gusto know the drama was over leading Rafael to realise that he had said this out loud. "You still gotta tell your mother that you've been hiding the fact that you've been getting death threats for months. Somehow I don't think that's she's going to be too pleased with that"

Oh fuck.

Liv the traitor just laughed at the look of despair on his face.

* * *

Avri was sat again she noted to herself, at Liv's desk. The only difference between the last time this had happened and now was that Chief Dodds, Mike Dodds father was sat there on the other side of the desk flipping through his phone. He had not spoken to her other than the greetings that usually followed whenever he met someone and was instead using his phone to send out what Avri suspected (due to the venomous look on his face combined with the insane speed of typing) a rapid and angry email. Instead she spent the time curled up on her own phone and texting Zach. She supposed at some point she would have to tell her boyfriend that she had spent the last few weeks under intense fear about anonymous threats, but she wasn't sure if she wanted to tell him. Wouldn't it worry him? More to the point shouldn't she try and protect him for all of this shit?

"It's a point" Chief Dodds said when Avri asked him this. "But if I kept something secret like that from my wife she'd scalp me. People are scarier when they find something out after it happens rather than before. Maybe you should tell him about Lewis too?"

He caught Avri's expression and rolled his eyes.

"I read the file" he said sounding irritated at Avri's surprise at his intelligence and actual common sense.

"Look" he said sitting up and putting his phone down. "My advice is if you like this guy tell him. Don't have a relationship built on a lack of trust. It will break the two of you. You want an adult relationship, have an adult relationship by telling him the truth. And if you tell anyone I was acting as a relationship councillor to a seventeen year old I will personally ensure that your licence is on hold at the DMV indefinitely"

Avri was about to tell him that she didn't even know how to drive because this was New York and it was a nightmare to drive unless you had flashing nights and a siren. However, the door opened then and Liv came in looking like she wanted to smack someone. She exchanged a dark look with Chief Dodds.

"As we suspected?" he asked delicately. Liv nodded. "Barba's on the phone to Jack McCoy and Michael Cutter now but Tucker wants to speak to you considering that we already have proof I think your gonna wanna speak to them as well. McCoy is not what you would call happy right now" she shook her head. Dodds snorted and stood up. "No I didn't think he would" he muttered passing Liv and reaching for the door smiling at Avri as he walked through it. Avri smiled back. Chief Dodds she thought to herself had grown on her. He was actually quite nice.

"So who was it?" she asked finally as Liv took her glasses off looking tired. She eyed Avri for a second and then finally she spoke.

"Do you remember the case about the kid we accidentally shot and the cops that were put on trial?"

Avri knew that she wasn't going to forget about the night that she had been caught with Zack and the subsequent embarrassment that had followed. She also remembered that it was soon after that that the threats had started. Instead she nodded. Liv sighed again and then she spoke.  
"It was them. Or one of them Louise Campesi. She was the female detective that was indicted for Manslaughter. Anyway she claims that she didn't know that her defence attorney had concocted this in order to make you Dad either dumped the case or pled it down to something she could live with, you were another method when that didn't work, what happened with Lewis is on file. They knew the only way to get to your dad was to get to you, but—" she lifted her hands in the air as if to demonstrate how she felt about this story. "Either way weather or not she knew or not the bitch's career is finished"

Avri nodded swallowing hard as she tried to process this information.

"It's over?" she asked finally. Liv nodded smiling.

"Liv can I ask you something?" she said finally and then before Liv could say anything she asked the question. "Do you think Zack can handle it if I tell him about Lewis?"

Liv leaned back in his chair. "Yes" she said finally. "From what I was told about him and from what I know he can"

Avri nodded and stood up smoothing down her dress. "I'll go find Dad" she said. She got all the way to the door before she really heard what Liv said.

"How did you know anything about Zack?" and then it clicked. "Oh my God, Dad asked you to look into him didn't he?" Liv just grinned at her and Avri found herself grinning back.

"Unbelievable" she said shaking her head and walking out the door. She found however that she was still smiling.

* * *

 **And there it is, I hope you enjoyed it and the penultimate chapter should be up soon.**


	24. Exodus

**Hi, so here is another chapter, this is the final one of Season 17. The final chapter will be based on an episode further down the line and will complete this little epilogue. I am finishing this story quickly due to an increased workload come September and therefore as soon as the final chapter has been written.**

 **I hope you all enjoy this chapter.**

 **Disclaimer-Nothing is mine just this piece of fiction.**

 **Please Read and Review they are always welcome.**

* * *

Prosecutor's Daughter

Chapter 24-Exodus

* * *

Avri told Zack the truth about William Lewis and the truth about why she had taken so much time off school in the middle of last year on a cold Wednesday. The same Wednesday her father gained an indictment on a correctional officer who had been abusing the women who were in his care. It was also the day that his wife announced he was leaving him and enraged the corrections officer to his wife and Mike Dodds hostage in his house. Of course Avri didn't know that at that particular time. The aftermath of that little escapade would come later. Much later. And with it another form of mental scaring that she would not easily be able to burn out of her mind. Right now she had bigger problems (or so it seemed) to deal with.

They were sat in Starbucks and Avri had a moment where she talked and talked and was aware of each and every emotion and feeling she had felt back then as if it was happening in front of her. It was like a cinema screening and she could see it clearly. The entire time she was talking she could feel the ropes on her wrists and the blood dripping down her chin. The feeling of her hair on her shoulders after it had been cut off and the look on Amelia's face when Avri had asked her if she had seen her be raped. The feel of hands upon her and then again the determined terror that came when you knew that there was a very good chance you were going to die but you didn't know when.

Zack was silent throughout all of it and when Avri stopped and then downed her coffee upon finishing he didn't speak for a long time. She tried to read his expression but true to form he was making it very difficult for her to get a read upon him. Finally just when she was about to give up hope on any kind of response Zack spoke as if he was thinking very hard about which words would not upset her.

"So—err—he didn't rape you in the end? Not that it's—err—"

"No" Avri said shuddering "But he came close. If Olivia Benson hadn't got there when she did—"

"And he's dead…like defo dead, like you've seen the body?"

"No I've not seen the body in the morgue but I know he's dead. I saw the body on the floor. I had his blood on my arms. I had nightmares about it for months. Trust me I know he's dead. William Lewis was good Zach but even he cannot escape a bullet hole through the side of his head"

"Good" Zach said finally. "Good he deserved it." He looked down at his coffee.

"Why didn't you say anything in school? Why didn't it get out you were there? I mean…the press are a nightmare on a good day and this would have been a big scoop for them. Why didn't it get out when the thing went to trial?"

Avri decided against telling Zach that the thing didn't go to trial and that Grand Jury's were not the same thing but there were more important things at stake here after all.

"The press didn't know. Liv had this Captain at NYPD who smoothed it all over. I know you don't like it when cops do that Zach but this was one of those emergency cover ups that was desperately needed. Whatever happened before I came to Liv with my Dad I don't know about but I know that William Lewis was a monster. He picked me because he saw me and I was the daughter of the man who got him sent down. It was to get to my Dad and…look I'm not saying it's going to happen again or that anything will happen to you but…my Dad is a public prosecutor. He makes enemies and enemies can sometimes go after family and friends."

And now came the hard part it seemed. "Look if you want to break things off and go out with someone who has a decidedly less drama filled life then I understand Zach I do. But do me a favour and don't tell anyone. The last thing I need is the school knowing about what happened. It's too much on top of everything else."

Zach stared at the window for a second. "You must have been terrified" he said finally. He seemed not to have grasped what Avri had been saying at all it seemed and she had to bite down on her lip to curb her irritation at what she knew was her boyfriend prolonging the inevitable. But she didn't have an answer to that one, instead she looked down at her hands and wished she had not drank her coffee that fast so she had something to hold in them.

Finally Zach turned to her and then he reached out and took her hands in his.

"I aint going anywhere Princess. Trust me, us Brightman's are made of stronger stuff than that. I get it know. I'll go as slow as you want me to, just as long as you promise to smile at me with those dimples" and he winked at her.

Avri couldn't believe it had been that easy and she had to wipe her eyes least her mascara start running and she turn into a complete sap. Zach grinned at her and the left his seat so he was sitting on hers pulling her close so that he was halfway hugging her. It was one of the more beautiful moments between the two of them and Avri had no trouble spending most of her afternoon there. Bunking off school, getting her and Zach into trouble or not, this had been worth it.

She had forgotten about her little snag in the plan however.

Her Dad.

* * *

Rafael had taken to pacing around the room. Carrisi was off giving blood. Rollins had sprinted off after him phone halfway to her ear. She was calling Lucy, Liv's nanny and her own to see if they could cover the overtime both Liv and her would be working tonight. Tucker had taken control of the uniforms in the room and Chief Dodds had taken to wandering up and down the hospital, as if he was waiting for the rug to be pulled out from under him. Rafael knew the feeling. He had been there with Avri and that was why he was trying to avoid the Chief. He had no desire to rehash that agony again any time soon. If ever. Fin had taken to making the calls to various family members and was therefore out of the room.

Munson was now in custody. Mike was in surgery with a bullet hole in his abdomen. Munson's wife was with her father and her kids in shock and Rafael had taken to pacing up and down worrying both about Mike Dodds (who he did like) and his daughter who had—according to her school, not shown up this morning despite the fact she had left on time and in her school uniform.

Liv was sat on the couch in the waiting room looking tired. She had been the senior detective and by association (and a long time knowing the mind of Olivia Benson) knew what she was thinking.

"Don't" he said standing in front of her. "Don't blame yourself. You had two kids to take care off and Mike knew what he was doing. Nobody knew about the second gun not even his wife"

"This is the second time he's been shot under my care" Liv said finally.

"And it could be the third time or the fourth tomorrow or the day after. Mike knew this when he picked up a badge and hoisted a gun on his hip. So did Amanda and Sonny, so did Fin. So did Amaro when he got shot. So did your old partner and Cragen and Munch. Every cop knows that this could happen and they do their job anyway. Don't go down that road of thinking your responsible for the actions of one crazy. Trust me you'll go insane"  
Liv nodded though Rafael was willing to bet she had not heard a word of it.

There was the sound of running footsteps down the hall and Rafael turned to see Avri her hair flying around the bottom of her shoulder blades now and her uniform crumpled come into the room. The boy Zach was following her. Avri threw herself at him and he stopped being worried about where she had been and why she was not at school and he hugged her back thanking god she had not done something stupid and that she was safe.  
"Sorry" she said pulling back. "I know I shouldn't have bunked off but…well…err…anyhow I saw the news update how's Dodds?"

"Out of surgery" came a voice behind them and they all turned to see Chief Dodds who looked as if he had aged ten years in ten minutes. "And expected to make a full recovery"

The room of cops exploded in cheers. Liv grinned relief sweeping over her face.

"I told Zach about Lewis" Avri said over the noise so he had to strain to hear her. "I told him about all of it. He still wants to be with me" she was beaming and Rafael caught Zach's expression as he took in the room of cops and wondered for a second if he was used to this, the family in blue rather than the cover ups the press constantly presented.

"Well I knew he would" he said at the look on his daughter's face. She wanted approval after all and that was the least that he could give her after the emotional whirlwind that had been today and ever other day since she had come into the squad room with her suitcase looking for a parent.  
"Listen we can talk about school later. You and Zach go for dinner somewhere I'm gonna be busy all night here." He reached into his wallet and grabbed all the cash he had. Avri stared at him as if he had just told her he was dying. Zach's eyebrows shot to the top of his head. Rafael wondered if he was rethinking his future plans and made a note to tell him most of the time defence attorneys got more than the prosecutor's being most of the time they were privately owned instead of public servants. You know, just in case.

Maybe then he could casually remind him that he knew people who knew how to hide evidence and bodies and shot at considerable distance.  
Friendly father to boyfriend chat and all.

Oh yes.

"Thanks Dad" Avri said beaming and Rafael knew that he was lost to that smile same way he had always been.  
And then she was gone.

* * *

After a considerably nice steak and two beers that he may or may not have gotten on the sly Avri and Zach were going back to her place. Zach had, had a very nice night. There were things he needed to think about to be sure and he knew he might have go to his Dad—always a source of confidence when it came to women and tell him, he had to tell someone after all but he was feeling rather happy. The cop had survived (and that was good news) the bad guy in prison, and Avri's father hadn't murdered him.

All in all it was a good night. A good exodus to this chapter.

Avri snorted when he told him that and had kissed him.

She opened the door to her apartment and turned to say goodbye to him when there was the sounds of muffled swearing. She turned frowning to switch the light on and there it was. Avri's father and that female detective…Olivia something sat on the couch though Zach would put good money on them (taking in their expressions and appearances) that they had been making out on the couch like a pair of horny teenagers and he had to look away least he start laughing and encounter his girlfriends anger.

Avri took a deep breathe closed her eyes and opened them again. Zach couldn't blame her. Granted this woman wasn't Avri's mother but he knew all too well if he had walked in on his parents like that…well it hardly bore thinking about.

Avri turned to him then as her father half stood up his shirt half undone.

"You still wanna make a run for it?" She asked a smile playing at her mouth.

"Because once you're in this crazy I can promise you you're not going to get back out"

Zach took in the expressions of the two adults, his girlfriend and remembered the way everyone in blue had been at the hospital. Maybe he might have a view point changed down the line. Not all cops were the enemy that his Mom and Dad had been strict to tell him. Maybe even the prosecutor's were on the side of the angels too.

"Nah" he said grinning. "I can cope with a little crazy Barba"

Avri smiled that gorgeous smile of hers again. Mr Barba rolled his eyes. Olivia Benson (that was her name!) looked embarrassed but pleased.

Zach just grinned.

* * *

 **And there you go, let me know what you think and I will try and update this story pronto.**


	25. Just Another Normal Day

**Hi, so here is the final chapter! I am so glad that I can give this story the ending it deserved and I want to thank all of you for your extraordinary kind reviews over the course of this story. This was always going to be a short story with a short time frame and I am glad I can know cross this one off my list. But no story is getting told unless people want to read it so my thanks for all eternity to all of you readers both old and new who have taken this story on and have enjoyed it.**

 **I don't know much about Harvard or travel in New York so any inaccuracies I apologise for, I think everyone knows what episode this is based on and I have tried to keep it as accurate as I can.**

 **Disclaimer-Nothing is mine just Avri.**

 **Please Read and Review and let me know what you think.**

* * *

Prosecutor's Daughter

Chapter 25-Just Another Normal Day.

* * *

Two and a half Years Later

* * *

Avri got the phone call in the early hours of the afternoon. She had just gotten out of her criminal law lecture and she had switched her phone off—because the old twit who taught the lecture was a dick at the best of times and phone's ringing in the middle of a debate on weather or not a serial killer worthy of being on an episode of Criminal Minds had been put away using due process was not a good time.

She was meeting Zach and his roommate Montague for lunch. He had been in his sociology class and she turned on her phone to see twelve missed calls and another forty text messages coming in from not only her Dad but also Amanda, Fin, Sonny, Mike and also other people she knew including Lucy. She blinked for a second taking in all the messages. If she didn't know better—and her Dad wasn't still trying to get in touch with her—she would have thought that someone had died. However she did notice on her initial sweep of the messages that there was nothing from Liv and that sent a knot of foreboding curling in her stomach.

There was a pause where she stood there trying to take in all of this information and then she decided to ring Mike. Out of everyone he was the one that Avri knew would not ask what she was doing or where she was but would rather cut to the chase and tell her what was going on. The phone rang only once and then Mike Dodds picked up. The noise in what she assumed was the squad room behind him was so strong Avri had to strain to hear him.

"Hey Mike" she said finally once she could hear him.

"Avri oh thank Go—Rollins I got her! It's not Barba there trying to get too it's Liv"

What the fuck?

"Mike are you ok?" she asked even as she could hear multiple shouts in the background.

"Avri are you still at Harvard?"

"Yes but why are you—"

But Mike cut across her and told her the entire story. Of Shelia Porter and her brother, or at the very least the kid she had come to consider her little brother since her father and Liv had stopped dancing their dance two years ago and moved in together. Avri had known some of it…well she had known about the existence of this woman and her fight for Noah but she had been told that she had retired her fight to become Noah's grandmother and that had been the end of that.

When Mike said the words kidnap she half sunk onto the stone bench that was nearby. Two years of semi-peace and it was all going tits up because of a woman (and she knew it was that woman) that she had never met and had never trusted. She forced herself to half listen to what Mike Dodds was spouting like a broken teapot and then she hung up the phone cutting him off mid sentence.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Well she had to get back, she'd have to move a few things around but she would have to get back to New York and the SVU squad as soon as humanly possible. She stood up shivering as the cold air blasted around her and she was suddenly very aware that the air was cold. It was post Christmas and she bit her lip thinking that Liv had been bemoaning the other week when she had been home about the lack of Noah's winter coat.  
She sent Zach a quick SOS text telling him what had happened and what was going to happen and then she went straight back to the dorms, threw a few things into a bag, sent a couple of emails to her faculty advisor informing him of what had happened and where she was going to be in case he was asking, locked up her dorm and then was halfway down the stairs before she even thought to send her Dad a text message.

She dithered for a second on weather or not she should tell him she was coming but she thought it best to not. He was going to have enough on his plate without her constantly bombarding him with information. She half ran to the subway (considering that it was easier for her to take than to get a cab—and a damn sight more expensive not that that mattered when she thought about it) with any luck she would be able to get home before night had fallen.

* * *

Rafael had been sat at the kitchen counter pouring the wine for the rest of the team that had shown up unceremoniously without being asked and had planted themselves down as if they lived in his apartment which he supposed considering the amount of time they all seemed to spend there they did. He hoped that they would stop drinking soon because Fin and Sonny had all put polished off the beer and between the two of them Amanda and Mike were going through all of his tonic and most of his good vodka. Liv had gone to put Noah down for bed and Rafael was trying not to compulsively check his phone to see if Avri had rang him.

The hours before had been choked with trying to find Shelia Porter. There had been a run up of so much time that he had hardly had time to see Liv. What had gone on between Liv and Shelia Porter, Rafael did not know but he had arrived to see Liv showing Noah the deer and Mike and Sonny both shooting terrified looks at their boss and handcuffing Shelia Porter in the police car. Liv it seemed had not told Noah what was going on and therefore they had, had to sprit the kid's grandmother away before he could realise what was going on.

Also, there was the fact that he had not seen or heard from his daughter all day. He knew that Avri generally had adopted his advice of turning her cell phone off in the lectures where she had the more…difficult professors and he knew that Mike had spoken to his daughter and therefore had ascertained that she was alive and off free will, which considering at the time they had not known that. When Noah had been taken Rafael's first thought had been of Lewis and what that had entailed and then the threats that had touched his daughter. Both Liv and he had the jobs where people crazy or mad enough would come after their children. Being together only made them a stronger target somehow. And Avri for better or (most likely) for worse was a woman of nearly twenty and knew how to defend herself. She had signed up to at least three self defence classes when she had gotten into Harvard and another three yoga classes so when she was finding time to put his money at good use and study was something he would worry about any other time other than this.

He poured him and Liv both large glasses of wine and swallowed a mouthful of his own as he passed Mike his vodka. The man smiled at him. Mike's wounds still got to him some days when he worked long hours as such he had taken to walking around the squad room when cases went on for too long just so his muscles and the knot of scar tissue he still possessed gave him grief. Jesse was sat with Noah who thankfully didn't have a clue what was going on and Liv had only ducked out of the room in order to find him a book that he wanted and Rafael had no doubt that she had gone to collect herself. Liv had struggled and then accepted Shelia Porter too fast for herself to be truly comfortable. There would be ramifications from this that would go on with his partner for months to come.

He swallowed again checking his phone. Why hadn't she got in touch with him? This morning he could understand but he had called Zach and even he hadn't seen her since this morning. She had gotten word that Liv's son had been kidnapped and then she had disappeared it seemed off the face of the earth. Oh Rafael was going to kill her when she did eventually show up. Actually no that was the wrong description. He was going to hug the shit out of her when she did show up. Then he might kill her. He had been jittery since Liv had called him even though he knew that there was no way that the two kids had been targeted by the same person—at least now he did.

Liv came out and stood next to him.

"You ok?" he asked finally. She shook her head once her lips pressed together as she leaned her head for a second on his shoulder looking at her son playing with Rollin's daughter who was babbling away in a language that once Rafael might have understood but was for now only legible for Noah.

"You heard from Avri since Dodds talked to her?" she asked in response. Rafael shook his head once. "You know when she eventually get's in touch I planned to yell but now I just wanna know she's ok, it's been nearly four hours since Mike talked to her and another twenty two on top of that since I spoke to her last night. I don't know weather or not I want to kill her or hug her"

"Hug her" Liv said without skipping a beat. "You get a second chance with your kids and all you want to do is hug them" her words were kind but considering her eyes were fixated on Noah, Rafael knew and understood that they were not about him.

"You know you can get through this" he said finally. "I did and I had a kid who actually understood what was going on"

Liv smiled though it didn't meet her eyes. Rafael kissed her on her cheek and she leaned against him once more for a second. They didn't show much physical affection in public preferring to be professional on any normal day. But this had not been a normal day.

There was a knock at the door and Liv turned to open it. For a second she stood there and when she turned it was to catch his eye and grin. And then before he could say anything she stepped to one side and then he could see who was there.

Avri.

Thank God.

She looked incredibly windswept like she had ran most of the way here. She was dressed in a loose pair of leggings and a stripy jumper and her boots that had been his daughter's trademark for so long and she had a bag slung over her shoulder. Her hair which she had cut back to her shoulders and added bangs to last year was loose but she was still his daughter and she still had his daughter's dimpled smile.

"I'm sorry" she said throwing her bag on the floor and crossing the room and before he could speak she had thrown herself in her arms. "I'm sorry" she said into his shoulder. "I tried to get an earlier subway but you know what it's like and then traffic was a nightmare and I had to stop to get cash…and the whole thing was a disaster and then my phone went out of battery and then I only just found out that everything was ok."

"S'Ok" he said into her hair closing his eyes in relief and then he swallowed. He was right, he couldn't stay mad at her for long. She was his baby, he had nearly lost her two years ago and Liv had nearly lost her baby today hell he had nearly lost his…well was Noah his son? Oh, that was something he wasn't going to tackle tonight, it had already been too long a day. He was just happy that she was here and she safe.

"Avri!" came a shout and then a human hurricane shot out from behind the small table and hit Avri square in the knees. Avri pulled back grinning and bending so that she could touch Noah's hair and then she was off being pulled down so she was sitting cross legged in the little circle that Noah and Jessie had made listening to the two of them. Rafael took a moment to take in his little girl who had not been so little as of late.

"Cragen and Munch said they might come around later, and Amaro's gonna facetime. He said he might come down but his leg's not good in the winter nor is it good on long planes or drives." Fin said finally swallowing the last of his beer. "I told them you were ok" he said to Liv. "And they both laughed. Said they knew that you were ok. The captain's even been in touch with Elliot, yeah" he said catching Liv's expression of surprise, the pain that came with the knowledge of her old partner and the way that relationship ended and the love for him that Rafael knew was there and wasn't jealous off because there Elliot Stabler had never had eyes for anyone but the woman he had been married too.

"He might ring you too. I think it's time we get the whole gang together, the old and the new"

"And what?" Liv laughed "There's not a bar in New York that won't throw us out. We'd either drink the place dry or destroy the place"

Fin grinned once. "Well that's half the fun" he said with a smile. Liv smiled back and Rafael could tell that it was genuine smile. He reached out and hugged her, sliding a hand around her back and he caught Avri's eye. She smiled again and he realised Fin was still speaking. "I told them that everything was going to be ok" he said reaching for the beer that Sonny Carrisi had just taken out of his fridge. "As far as some days have gone, this is just another normal day"

"Yeah" Rafael said watching his daughter, the prosecutor's daughter, his Avri playing with Noah and Jessie and the team that were surrounding them that had been there when he had needed them and had been there when he had needed them today. When they had needed them today.

It was just another normal day.

* * *

 **And there it is! I hope you all enjoyed this story and this chapter. Again a massive thank you to all of you for your kind reviews. I wish you happy reading and writing in whatever your fandom is.**


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